A Winning Strategy Ultimately Prevails
Letter from Walt Bettinger, Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors
Consistency through the Cycle
In my Annual Report letter last year, I stated “Environments come and go … but successful strategy is timeless.”
Your company’s results in 2024 proved this statement to be true, as we remained committed to:
• our Through Clients’ Eyes strategy,
• a long-term focus, and
• the Golden Rule, with an emphasis on serving our clients the way we would want to be served.
Despite a choppy environment, a uniquely contested Presidential election and the most intensely competitive year in my 40+ years of business experience, your company’s results were favorable by many measures, and we have particularly strong momentum heading into 2025.
In addition to completing the largest and most complex acquisition integration in the history of the investment brokerage industry, we continued with solid organic growth. Clients entrusted us with $367 billion in core net new assets and opened 4.2 million new brokerage accounts—increases of 20% and 10%, respectively, over 2023. Importantly, fourth quarter 2024 growth in net new assets was 51% higher and growth in new brokerage accounts was 23% higher than for fourth quarter 2023. At year-end, client assets exceeded the $10 trillion mark, and total client brokerage, banking, and workplace accounts were in excess of 43 million.
From a stockholder standpoint, after a particularly difficult year in 2023, our stock price grew from $68.80 to $74.01, leading to a total return of 9% counting dividends. Long-term stockholders continue to be rewarded, as our ten-year total return for stockholders has been 166%. I am optimistic about our ability to continue to deliver returns for our stockholders going forward—as supported by 20% revenue growth and 84% growth in earnings per share (49% on an adjusted basis1) in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
SCHW stock price at year-end for the past 20 years
Client assets over the last 20 years
(in billions at year-end)
After 16 years of serving you as CEO, in early October I announced my plan to retire as CEO at year-end. I will remain Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors, along with our remarkable founder, Chuck Schwab. Rick Wurster, our President for the past three years, assumed the role of CEO as of the beginning of 2025.
I owe a deep debt of gratitude to our clients, employees, stockholders, and Board of Directors for the honor of serving you, as well as for the privilege of making this decision on my wife’s and my time frame. Few CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are afforded this freedom, and I will be forever grateful. Thank you.
Consistency & Stability During a Time of Transition
For over 50 years, The Charles Schwab Corporation has been a model of consistency and stability. A significant contributor to this consistency and stability is the continuity in the executive leadership of your company. With the exception of about 18 months, there have been only two sole CEOs at your company over five-plus decades ending in 2024—Chuck Schwab and myself. As Rick steps into the CEO position, I have every confidence he will maintain this degree of stable leadership.
Few successful organizations in any industry experience frequent turnover in their senior-most leadership. And Schwab is no exception. Stability of your Board of Directors, your senior-most leadership, and your entire executive team helps us take a long-term view.
It contributes to our intense, continuous focus on serving our clients. We know from many years of experience that we can grow revenues, profits, and our stock price over time by taking a consistent approach based on long-term thinking rooted in client needs.
These simple—but not simplistic—viewpoints guide us every day. As I often say, we are committed to a strategy that doesn’t change with the gyrations of the markets, interest rates, politics, or external pressures.
When you choose to invest in Schwab as a stockholder, invest with Schwab as a client, custody your clients’ assets with Schwab as an independent advisor, retain Schwab to serve your employees in a benefit plan, join Schwab as an employee, or welcome Schwab into your community, you know what you are getting.
A company with a clear strategy. A company with a long-term perspective. A company and team of dedicated professionals with a commitment to doing what is right. Every day. Consistently.
Gratitude For Your Trust
We have a belief at Schwab that “Trust is everything. Earned over time. Lost in an instant.”
We are in the trust business. We serve over 43 million client accounts with over $10 trillion in assets for clients around the globe. At the core of every one of these relationships is trust.
Trust is equally important for our stockholders. We strive to deliver open and transparent communications, clear reporting of our financial results, and stability in our strategy and execution. By committing to this philosophy for the past 50 years, we have been blessed with a stable group of long-term investors.
This overarching emphasis on earning and maintaining trust has underpinned our growth for decades. At the beginning of 2009, as I began my tenure as your company’s CEO, our market capitalization was approximately $19 billion. At year-end 2024, our market capitalization was approximately $136 billion. Over the same time frame, our total client brokerage accounts grew from 7.4 million to 36.5 million and client assets grew from $1.1 trillion to $10.1 trillion.
Schwab’s Virtuous Cycle
The Virtuous Cycle recognizes and rewards our clients, employees, stockholders, and communities in a way that reinforces the benefits of continuing to work with Schwab over time. This type of long-term thinking defines the way we operate at Schwab. We strive to make decisions that will benefit all our constituencies for years to come.
These results are simply a snapshot in time. Part of earning your trust is what happens after I am no longer your company’s CEO.
For the past eight years, your company’s Board of Directors has worked closely with me to ensure a smooth and uneventful transition to our next CEO—Rick Wurster.
And for the past three years, Rick and I have worked closely every day on each decision we faced as a company. Rick is exceptionally talented and bright. And yet, it is his character and integrity that truly stand out. I am delighted he will lead your company into the future and excited to support him in my role as Co-Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Serving you as Schwab’s Chief Executive Officer for the past 16 years has been the honor of my professional life. And I hope I have earned your trust over the years. Thank you.
Warmly,
Walt Bettinger
March 3, 2025
linkedin.com/in/waltbettinger
1 Further details on non-GAAP financial measures are included within our 10-K filed on February 26, 2025.