Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Wells Fargo's annual meeting today in Salt Lake City

Wells Fargo is holding its annual meeting this morning, but the San Francisco bank's investors won't be gathering to vote on directors and executive pay on the bank's home turf.

Instead, the bank is driving its stagecoach about 700 miles east to Salt Lake City. It's certainly unusual: the bank hasn't met outside the Bay in 14 years, the Associated Press reports.

Surprisingly, they're not the only mega-bank meeting in Utah's capital. Goldman Sachs has also chosen Salt Lake City for its annual meeting despite hanging its hat in New York City.

Wells didn't tell the AP much about its motivations. The bank pointed out its roots and 4,000 employees in the state.

Last year's meeting in San Francisco got a little hairy. A few activist groups -- including Reinvestment Partners from Durham -- have pledged to be in Salt Lake City this year, but presumably there will be fewer people.

Bank of America's meeting will be in two weeks -- Wednesday, May 8 -- here in Charlotte. It's been in the Queen City since 1998, though it used to move around a little.

In 1997, the bank -- then known as NationsBank -- met in St. Louis, Missouri. The bank had swallowed the city's Boatmen's Bancshares a few months before in a deal making the Charlotte bank the fourth-largest in the country with $225 billion in assets.


In 1995, the bank met in Richmond, Va. In 1994, it was Atlanta.

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