Renaud Laplanche is out as chairman and CEO of LendingClub (LC), the online lending platform he founded 10 years ago, and he didn’t get any going-away money.
Laplanche on Friday resigned as chairman and CEO of LendingClub, following an internal investigation that found that several managers at the San Francisco-based company had knowingly violated company rules by selling $22 million in near-prime loans―$15 million in March, $7 million in April―to a single institutional investor in violation of some of that investor’s instructions (the company is not going into further detail). Moreover, LendingClub learned that one manager had gone so far as to change the application dates for $3 million of the loans, and also discovered an unrelated matter whereby at least one LendingClub employee failed to inform the board’s risk committee “of personal interests held in a third party fund while the Company was contemplating an investment in the same fund.”
LendingClub did not specify Laplanche’s alleged transgressions, except to hint in a statement that it was related to a “lack of full disclosure during the review.”
What the company is saying, however, is that Laplanche will not receive any of the $870,000 in severance he normally would have been entitled to receive (assuming no change in control). He also will not receive any of his unvested shares of LendingClub stock, which was down nearly 25% in trading early Monday.
Under terms of his employment agreement, Laplanche was paid $461,500 in base salary, and last year received an additional $549,185 in bonuses (which could have been paid in cash, but he requested in stock).
Three other senior LendingClub managers either were terminated or resigned, and none of them will receive severance either.