Wells Fargo shareholders vote down chairman proposal

Wells Fargo shareholders elected the company’s slate of 16 directors and approved compensation for top executives in a nonbinding vote at Tuesday’s annual stockholder meeting.

Shareholders did not approve a stockholder proposal requiring an independent chairman, with the measure receiving 16 percent of shares voted. Such a proposal has been been voted down at Wells Fargo every year for the past 10 years, according to Proxy Monitor.

A shareholder proposal calling on the company to produce a report on its lobbying policies and practices also failed, receiving 19 percent of shares voted.

The San Francisco-based bank held the meeting in St. Louis and completed the session in less than an hour.

At the end of the question-and-answer period, a shareholder asked Chairman and CEO John Stumpf about the bank’s reported talks to buy General Electric’s commercial lending operation, with $74 billion in assets.

“We surely can’t talk about that,” Stumpf responded.

However, he noted Wells agreed this month to buy real estate loans valued at $9 billion from GE and is providing $4 billion in financing to a Blackstone fund that is acquiring a commercial mortgage loan portfolio from GE.

Wells acquired Charlotte’s Wachovia in 2008. It has its largest employee hub in the city, with roughly 23,000 workers.

On Tuesday, Wells Fargo also increased its quarterly dividend per share by 2.5 cents to 37.5 cents. The increase was part of the bank’s 2015 capital plan, which received Federal Reserve approval this spring.

This story was originally published April 28, 2015 at 12:15 PM with the headline "Wells Fargo shareholders vote down chairman proposal."