Wachovia breaks up with Citi, starts seeing Wells Fargo

Posted on 3 Oct 2008 by Justin Ruckman

What’s ↑? NMH. Wachovia totally broke up with Citi through a note this morning, and now her and Wells Fargo are hanging out. Wells Fargo is totally hott. He’s gonna treat her so much better. All her friends like him, and he’s like totally a cowboy, OMG!

Anywayz here are the deets:

• Wells Fargo signed a definitive agreement to buy all of Wachovia’s operations
• purchase price is $15.1 billion (Citi’s was $2.1 billion)
• Wachovia shareholders will receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo common for each share of Wachovia, valued at $7 per share
• statement from Wells Fargo says combined companies will have strong presence in Charlotte, which will be its East Coast retail and commercial corporate banking headquarters
• deal will create the largest coast-to-coast retail bank in the nation, upsetting Bank of America
• new combined bank will have $1.42 trillion in assets, $787 billion in deposits, customer base of 48 million and upwards of 11,000 branches
• Wachovia brings 160,000 employees to Wells Fargo’s 120,000
• Wells Fargo is the only bank in the US to have the S&P’s AAA rating
• the deal “won’t require even a penny from the FDIC” (from WF statement)

More from the Charlotte Business Journal here:

• Wells Fargo, Wachovia agree to merge
• Comparing Wachovia and Wells Fargo
• Full text of statement by Wachovia
• Business community reacts to Wells Fargo-Wachovia merger
• A ‘better deal for everybody’
• Shares of Wachovia, Wells Fargo jump
• FDIC backs Citi-Wachovia deal over Wells

McCrory says (via WCNC & AP):

“My initial reaction is that this would be a better deal than Citigroup. And again, that is with very little information and the reason I say that is they are in the retail banking area also along with Wachovia. But their retail banking is primarily on the West Coast. And Wachovia has the East Coast and I would assume that we’d keep a lot of our infrastructure right here in Charlotte and the Carolinas and up and down the East Coast.”

UPDATE:

• Citi demands Wachovia, Wells Fargo terminate deal (Reuters)
• Wells confident its deal is ‘appropriate’ despite Citi (Charlotte Business Journal)