Boston, MA 02/04/2014 (wallstreetpr) – Howard V. Richardson, Chairman of the board’s audit and examination committee of American multinational banking and financial services giant Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) resigned from the conglomerate recently, presumed to be due to health concerns.
While Wells Fargo’s (WFC) board did not reveal details of his health concerns, merely citing grounds of health concerns, the board announced James H. Quigley, a member of the committee, to succeed Richardson. Before joining WFC early 2013, Richardson oversaw a variety of profiles with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, including spearheading its financial services, banking operations and capital markets division as also a partner in PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Heavy insider trading by CFO
Meanwhile, heavy insider trading was witnessed from Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice-President Timothy Sloan, who reportedly divested off about 75K WFC shares in his portfolio when the stock recently zoomed. The deal, which closed roughly around $3.43 million, saw about $45.84 per share.
Post this major transaction, Sloan is still in possession of over 314K shares of Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) stock, amounting to less than 1% of the conglomerate’s overall equity. Only a few days earlier, Sloan had acquired over 246K shares in WFC equity during a recent employee stock plan at roughly $13.05 a share, later selling off at around $46.39 a share. Sloan’s recent insider trade is considered the largest such selloff reported for WFC since the not-so-recent 300K equity selloff by CEO John Stumpf during the first week of November 2013.
Overall financial improvements
Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC), meanwhile, has seen good profits recently while trying to steady itself despite heavy headwinds owing to U.S. residential market slumps and downward spiraling revenues from the mortgage industry. In addition, in a bid to stem losses and augment its prospects, Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) recently initiated moves to scale down and eventually exit from the mortgage services business, through proposed divestment of its residential mortgage servicing rights (MSR) over 184,000 loans to the tune of $39 billion to fellow American mortgage player Ocwen Financial Corp. (NYSE:OCN). Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC) stocks dropped to $44.43 on February 3 from their previous $45.34, while after-hours figures improved slightly to $44.57.
