Gillian Tan, Columnist

Munger Misfires Defending Wells Fargo's Mistakes

The vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, the bank's biggest shareholder, was tone-deaf in saying regulators should let up on the lender.

February 14, 2018 at 8:11 PM UTC

By Gillian Tan

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

1518639887_GettyImages-143913467 — Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

This article is for subscribers only.

Wells Fargo & Co. deserves a break? Are you kidding me?

On Wednesday, Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s vice chairman Charlie Munger -- Warren Buffett's business partner -- made some tone-deaf comments about the scandal-plagued lender. Among them? That it's time for regulators to let up on the bank, and that "practically everyone" makes the types of mistakes that it did, like offering employee incentives that are "too strong in one direction" and responding slowly to bad news when it hits. His rationale seems to be that Wells Fargo and its customers will wind up better-placed than they were before the scandals broke.