SAN FRANCISCO - Wells Fargo & Co. said Tuesday that Dick Kovacevich will step down as chairman at the end of 2009, after agreeing last fall to stay to help the bank deal with the financial crisis.
CEO John Stumpf, 56, will replace him on Jan. 1.
Kovacevich, 65, will retire from the San Francisco-based company -- Minnesota's largest bank by share of deposits -- early next year. He agreed last November to continue as chairman for an interim period to focus on the crisis facing the financial services industry and the company's acquisition of Wachovia Corp.
In 1998, Kovacevich was the CEO of Minneapolis-based Norwest Corp. when he engineered Norwest's takeover of Wells Fargo. Norwest took Wells Fargo's name and moved its headquarters west.
Norwest hired the onetime General Mills executive away from Citicorp in 1986 to run its banking operations. He was named Norwest's chief executive in 1992.
Stumpf, who had been chief operating officer since 2005, replaced Kovacevich as CEO in 2007. Stumpf will retain his CEO position when he becomes chairman.
The bank has fared better than most of its peers during the past year, but like others it faces future loan losses as unemployed customers default on loans.
Still, its latest second-quarter earnings after payment of preferred dividends were $2.58 billion, or 57 cents per share, to beat the 34 cents per share forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. Its quarterly revenue of $22.5 billion also beat their forecast.
