Omaha — Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway on Saturday criticised Wells Fargo & Co for failing to stop employees from signing up customers for bogus accounts even after learning it was happening, causing a scandal. Wells Fargo, whose largest shareholder is Berkshire with a 10% stake worth roughly $27bn, gave employees too much autonomy to engage in "cross-selling" multiple products to meet sales goals, Buffett said. This "incentivised the wrong type of behaviour," and former CE John Stumpf, who lost his job over the scandal, was too slow to fix the problem, Buffett said. Wells Fargo was among many topics discussed at Berkshire’s annual meeting in Omaha, where Buffett, 86, and Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, 93, fielded dozens of questions from shareholders, journalists and analysts. "If there’s a major problem, the CEO will get wind of it. At that moment, that’s the key to everything. The CEO has to act," Buffett said. "The main problem was they didn’t act when they le...
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