Washington Mutual Case Study

1455 Words3 Pages

The global financial crisis of 2008-09 caught many of the worlds largest financial institutions by surprise. In the case of Washington Mutual the decade prior to the collapse was spurred on by rapid expansion at the expense of good corporate ethics. As Weik E. 1993 theorized, the lack of sound business practices in a rapidly expanding organization can cause structural issues as the institution integrates with institutions operating under a different corporate culture. For an institution to succeed it must treat this point as an intagible part of its operating culture. If integration and good corporate ethics are unable to be reconciled under the sense making principle then their future is surely the same as that of WaMu as you will
Washington Mutual is a small bank in Seattle that was losing $5 million per month of capital investments. They could run the bank for three years, but the management team was not able to deal with the problem. As a result Washington Mutual’s board of trustees met to find a solution to solve this problem. Lou Pepper, a lawyer in Seattle who had a seat in Washington Mutual’s board of trustees accepted the job to lead the bank and fix the problem. In seven years of Pepper leadership, he saved the bank from its inevitable bankruptcy. Washington Mutual’s culture was known as stodgy but Pepper made significant changes to the bank’s culture. He knew everyone in his staff personally and he was always walking around and talking to the people. Washington Mutual’s values in the “Pepper era” were: ethics, respect, teamwork, innovation and excellence. Pepper was always avoiding the high risk investments, such as commercial real estate loans, therefore, the bank kept growing. In 1988, Pepper retired, and named Kerry Killinger his successor. The latter did not believe in Pepper’s team skills, so he invested in higher risk
More branches were built that looked more like retail stores than banks. Vital managers were against Killinger’s restructures so they retired which made Killinger hire new managers whom had no loyalty to the bank. WaMu continued growing, and more problems have started but they kept buying other banks, and no one bothered with the detailed integration system that Wilson had made years earlier. Homeowners began complaining that the payments were not processed. In 2004, WaMu's mortgages banking income reduced significantly, prompting an action lawsuit from the shareholders. The suit says that WaMu was materially false and misleading. WaMu and Killinger were in trouble. Pepper, who was the previous CEO, wrote to Killinger suggesting a reduction in his salary and a quick hire for a Chief Operating Officer (COO). Killinger ignored the first advise and took into consideration the second one, and thereafter hired Steve Rotello from JPMorgan Chase. It was strange that the borrowers did not know the terms of the loan. The problem was that they saw the mortgages as low-payment loans but did not know that they were only paying the minimum option. Goldman Sachs was one of WaMu securitized mortgages biggest buyers. In order to keep growing and meet this need Killinger made more risky loans. However, Jim Vanasek, chief risk officer, opposed this plan, and recommended to

Open Document