Wells Fargo CEO Is On A Mission To 'Reassure' Investors

Wells Fargo & Co WFC CEO Timothy Sloan is on a mission to "reassure" investors its past mistakes will remain in the past.

Speaking to CNBC, the executive acknowledged the bank should have dealt with its fake-account creating scandal sooner and faster than it did. Perhaps more importantly, the company needs to "own up" to that fact, which is still hurting its reputation to this day.

"We have to rebuild that trust and that's my primary responsibility right now," Sloan emphasized. "What happened at Wells Fargo was our responsibility."

Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is Wells Fargo's biggest shareholder and owns a nearly 10 percent stake worth just shy of $30 billion.

Buffett initially shied away from commenting on the scandal, but told CNBC in an interview this year that Wells Fargo's "huge mistake" wasn't necessarily its incentive system which resulted in the fake account scandal, but it was the fact management "didn't do something about it until they learned about it."

Sloan said his company's biggest shareholder is correct and that the Oracle of Omaha has been "very direct in terms of some of the mistakes that we made." The problem is that Sloan acknowledged there may not be any words or action that are sufficient enough to "assure him" other than its actions moving forwards.

"I think our performance is going to reassure him as to whether or not he should continue as our largest shareholder," Sloan added.

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