NEW YORK, May 31 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co's (WFC.N) Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf said on Wednesday that there will be losses in the office loan space but the lender was proactively managing its portfolio.
But in the context of the overall portfolio and the overall size of our loan portfolio with the company, we are not overly concentrated in office (loan space)," Scharf said while speaking to investors at a conference.
The bank's outstanding commercial real estate (CRE) loans stood at $154.7 billion, or 16% of total loans, with $35.7 billion in office loans at the end of March.
Office loans have posed concerns for some lenders as property values decline and more borrowers default on their loans.
The San Francisco-based bank set aside $1.21 billion in the first quarter to cover potential loan losses, compared to $787 million a year earlier.
Persons:
Charlie Scharf, " Scharf, Scharf, Banks, We've, Wells Fargo, Nupur Anand, Saeed Azhar, Jason Neely, Nick Zieminski
Organizations:
YORK, U.S, Regulators, JPMorgan Chase &, Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, Thomson
Locations:
San Francisco, New York