John Stumpf, the former chief executive of Wells Fargo, has agreed to pay $17.5m as part of a civil settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which also charged or settled with seven other former senior executives of the bank. The enforcement actions announced on Thursday by the US banking regulator related to the fake accounts scandal at Wells that emerged in 2016 and continues to haunt the bank.    Mr Stumpf, who was also the bank’s chairman, resigned in 2016 after leading the bank for nearly a decade. (WSJ)

A powerful rebound in Intel’s data center division drove a stronger than expected recovery in the final quarter of last year, fueling a rally of as much as 7 per cent in the US chipmaker’s shares in after-market trading on Thursday.  Intel’s recovery, after three quarters of flat or declining revenues, provided one of the most encouraging indicators yet that a cyclical upturn in the chip sector may be under way. Wall Street had anticipated a recovery in the sector for much of last year.  Intel’s revenues jumped 8 per cent in the fourth quarter, to $20.2bn, compared to analysts’ expectations for growth of 3 per cent. (FT)

Xerox escalated its $33bn hostile takeover fight for control of HP on Thursday, proposing a new set of directors for the printer and computer maker’s board in an attempt to force HP to the negotiating table.  The tactic, a common weapon in the arsenal of activist investors, is an unusually aggressive move for a company trying to accomplish a merger.  HP has so far rejected overtures from Xerox, warning that it has “significant concerns” about the health of Xerox’s business and is skeptical of its rival’s ability to find $2bn of cost cuts if the two companies were to combine. (FirstFT)

With Northwest Quadrant Wealth Management, a Registered Investment Advisor I am Josh Fenili.