(ACBJ) - No one from Wells Fargo's 17-member “senior leadership team” remains based at the bank’s headquarters in San Francisco, the bank told me Wednesday.
The senior leadership team, as outlined on the bank’s website, includes CEO Charlie Scharf and the C-suite along with other senior executives, such as the heads of several business units.
As recently as February 2020, Wells had four members of its then 15-member senior leadership team based in San Francisco, where the bank (NYSE: WFC) was founded in 1852 amid the Gold Rush.
The possible loss of Wells Fargo’s San Francisco headquarters moved back into the spotlight this week when the bank announced it is building a major corporate campus in Las Colinas near Dallas to accommodate up to 4,000 workers. The bank told me this week, “Wells Fargo is not moving its San Francisco headquarters.”
That’s little solace considering the bank’s diminishing presence in San Francisco, especially when it comes to its corporate leadership. The CEO and much of his leadership team is based in New York, while a handful of the senior leadership team members are located in Charlotte, Wells Fargo’s largest employment center.
Wells' employee base in San Francisco County fell almost 20% in one year, dropping to 5,899 in 2021 from 7,021 in 2020, the bank said in January. The bank cited increased efficiencies as one factor in the drop.
Despite growing concern that San Francisco could lose the prestige and status that comes with Wells Fargo’s headquarters, the Bay Area continues to be an important market for Wells. The bank signed San Francisco’s largest lease in the second quarter, renewing for more than 620,000 square feet at 333 Market St. in San Francisco. This month the bank leased 40,000 square feet at Presidio Bay Ventures’ Springline mixed-use development in Menlo Park.
But the bank’s companywide effort to cut its real estate costs included shedding 146,500 square feet, per real estate information company CoStar, that it had leased for almost two decades at 45 Fremont St. in San Francisco.
Wells also put one of its San Francisco office buildings on the market earlier this year, asking $160 million for 550 California St., around the corner from its headquarters at 420 Montgomery St. But Wells pulled the 13-story building off the market when it couldn’t get the price it wanted.
By Mark Calvey
