Only 46 years old! A century-old American bank executive of Wells Fargo jumped to his death, and was still receiving business calls on the night of his death
Per editor: Bi Lu Ming
According to the Securities Times reported on October 3, on October 1, local time, the Daily Mail reported that Greg Beckett, a 46-year-old Wells Fargo executive, jumped to his death from the board room on the 14th floor of the company's headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. Greg has been in charge of Wells Fargo's internal controls, designed to protect the bank from risk. His family says Greg has been under tremendous work pressure.
According to the data, Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, USA, mainly engaged in retail banking, supplemented by wholesale banking, investment banking and personal finance business, and once became the world's largest bank by market capitalization. In terms of asset scale, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are among the top six in the US banking industry.
It is worth noting that Wells Fargo was once a favorite of the stock god Warren Buffett. At one point, Buffett was the bank's largest shareholder, holding a stock market worth as much as $32 billion. Wells Fargo was also the largest equity investment in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio. Buffett once said that Wells Fargo under $9 can be fully positioned, which is something that can be done for small investors, but absolutely impossible for him.
Judging from the latest financial report, Wells Fargo performed strongly in the second quarter of this year. Wells Fargo's revenue was US$20.53 billion, up 20.6% year-on-year; Earnings per share were $1.25, higher than market expectations, and net interest income was $13.2 billion, up 29% year-over-year.
As of Monday's close, Wells Fargo (WFC) closed down 3.06% at $39.61, with a total market value of $144.9 billion.
A 46-year-old bank executive jumped to his death
According to the Securities Times, citing the Daily Mail, on October 1, Greg Beckett, a 46-year-old Wells Fargo executive, jumped to his death from the board room on the 14th floor of the company's headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.
Greg Beckett has been in charge of Wells Fargo's internal controls, designed to protect the bank from risk. His family said Greg was under tremendous work pressure, with an ever-increasing workload and very long hours of workday. He was allegedly receiving business calls until 11 p.m. on the night of his death.
Image source: Visual China
A manager in another department said Greg had been working on several high-stress projects for a long time.
According to the Daily Mail, Greg left no suicide note or any other signs. On the night of his death, Greg Beckett abruptly stopped returning to text messages and phone calls from loved ones.
When his family became worried, his brother and sister-in-law, thinking he might have been in a car accident, went to his office to look for his car, only to find that the parking lot was cordoned off by police.
A Wells Fargo spokesperson expressed the company's grief at the loss of a colleague, noting that it is difficult to pinpoint the specific reasons behind tragedies such as Greg's death. In a statement, she said: "We are deeply saddened by the loss of a colleague. Greg is a valued member of our team. It is well known that when such a tragedy occurs, it is almost impossible to determine the cause. For all of us at Wells Fargo, nothing is more important than the well-being of our colleagues. ”
According to the data, Wells Fargo was founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, USA, mainly engaged in retail banking, supplemented by wholesale banking, investment banking and personal finance business, and once became the world's largest bank by market capitalization. In terms of asset scale, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are among the top six in the US banking industry.
It is worth mentioning that Wells Fargo was once the "favorite" of the "stock god" Buffett, and even became the largest stock investment in Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio. In the first quarter of 2022, after holding for 33 years, Buffett liquidated Wells Fargo. Industry insiders analyzed that the reason why Buffett cleared Wells Fargo may be that he perceived the risks in Wells Fargo's operation and management.
Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo said recently that its headcount could shrink further as the bank strives to improve efficiency. Wells Fargo has been cutting jobs since the third quarter of 2020. The bank has laid off nearly 40,000 employees and is likely to continue. Wells Fargo had 233,834 employees at the end of June, compared to 243,674 in the second quarter of last year.
Wells Fargo is riddled with scandals
According to Interface News on August 22, Reuters reported on August 21 that Wells Fargo won a lawsuit accusing Wells Fargo of cheating shareholders by advocating diversity in hiring, but its managers actually conducted "false interviews" with non-white and female job applicants.
According to a report by Shanghai Securities News on August 6, on August 3, Eastern time, according to local media reports, some US residents deposited money into Wells Fargo bank account, and woke up not only to find that the deposit was "missing", but the entire account was also overdrawn by hundreds of dollars.
"Wells Fargo stole nearly $4,000 I deposited on August 2 and I need my money now!! You also overdrawn my account! Some netizens strongly condemned on social platforms.
There are also a large number of customers who have expressed their dissatisfaction with Wells Fargo on the social platform X (formerly Twitter). In a comment from Wells Fargo, one netizen wrote: "You 'misplaced' two of my deposits, God knows how many others there are." I'm going to get my checking, savings, and retirement account IRA back from Wells Fargo and bury it in my backyard safer. ”
"The funny thing is that I deposited the check yesterday and it didn't show it. I called for help and they said they needed to file a case and it would take 10 days! Simply because of a system error. Who will cover my costs? Another netizen complained.
This is not the first time Wells Fargo has had such problems.
Just in March this year, when the US banking industry was shocked by the thunderstorm of Silicon Valley banks, Wells Fargo was exposed to similar problems. At the time, there were media reports that some customers found their deposits in Wells Fargo bank accounts disappearing overnight.
Wells Fargo then responded that the deposit disappeared because of an unknown technical problem. "We've been actively working to address issues with some customers who can't see direct deposit transactions in their accounts." Wells Fargo said it would resolve the issue as soon as possible and would refund the resulting fees.
In February 2018, the Federal Reserve imposed rare growth restrictions on Wells Fargo, requiring the bank not to increase its assets at the end of 2017 until its management issues were resolved. Until 2020, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the Federal Reserve announced a small modification of Wells Fargo's growth restrictions.
In addition, Wells Fargo has repeatedly received heavyweight fines for violations. On December 21, 2022, the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued the largest fine in banking history, ordering Wells Fargo to pay about US$3.7 billion (approximately RMB26 billion), of which US$1.7 billion was a civil penalty and US$2 billion was compensation to affected consumers. Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7 billion and settle with the CFPB to settle a series of charges.
The CFPB noted that Wells Fargo's "violations" included illegally charging fees and interest to auto loan customers, charging additional overdraft fees on savings accounts, etc., resulting in damage to more than 16 million consumers and thousands of losing cars and homes.
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