Wells Fargo, Bank of America Acquire Wachovia
January 1, 2009 by gtsay
Filed under Wells Fargo
As expected, Wells completed its $12.7 billion acquisition of Wachovia Corp. Wells Fargo & Co.and Bank of America Corp. completed major acquisitions before end of 2008.
With the merger, Wells Fargo and Wachovia customers will immediately have use of both banks’ ATMs for free.
Bank of America’s $2.7 trillion in assets after the $19.4 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. made it the largest U.S. bank and nation’s fourth-largest bank by assets. The combined bank has more than 6,713 outlets in 40 states.
Regulators had been pushing Wachovia to find a buyer after being crippled by housing loans. San Francisco-based Wells (NYSE:WFC) agreed to buy Wachovia which topped a bid by Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C).
Wachovia’s 2006 acquisition of Golden West Financial Corp. of Oakland, severely hampered Wachovia’s balance sheet and cashflow.
With the merger, Wells Fargo said it expects to write down $71.4 billion in assets acquired from Wachovia.
BofA (NYSE:BAC) said it expects to cut 35,000 jobs in the next three years as it absorbs Merrill Lynch.