Wachovia*banks LINK
Wachovia Corporation began on June 16, 1879 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina as the Wachovia National Bank. The bank was co-founded by James Alexander Gray and William Lemly.[10] In 1911, the bank merged with Wachovia Loan and Trust Company, "the largest trust company between Baltimore and New Orleans",[11] which had been founded on June 15, 1893. Wachovia grew to become one of the largest banks in the Southeast partly on the strength of its accounts from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which was also headquartered in Winston-Salem.[12] On December 12, 1986, Wachovia purchased First Atlanta. Founded as Atlanta National Bank on September 14, 1865, and later renamed to First National Bank of Atlanta, this institution was the oldest national bank in Atlanta. This purchase made Wachovia one of the few companies with dual headquarters: one in Winston-Salem and one in Atlanta. In 1991, Wachovia entered the South Carolina market by acquiring South Carolina National Corporation,[13] founded as the Bank of Charleston in 1834. In 1998, Wachovia acquired two Virginia-based banks, Jefferson National Bank and Central Fidelity Bank. In 1997, Wachovia acquired both 1st United Bancorp and American Bankshares Inc, giving its first entry into Florida. In 2000, Wachovia made its final purchase, which was Republic Security Bank.
wachovia*banks
Wachovia's board of directors rejected SunTrust's offer and supported the merger with First Union. SunTrust continued its hostile takeover attempt, leading to a bitter battle over the summer between SunTrust and First Union.[19] Both banks increased their offers for Wachovia, took out newspaper ads, mailed letters to shareholders, and initiated court battles to challenge each other's takeover bids.[20] On August 3, 2001, Wachovia shareholders approved the First Union deal, rejecting SunTrust's attempts to elect a new board of directors for Wachovia and ending SunTrust's hostile takeover attempt.[21]
On September 4, 2001, First Union and Wachovia officially merged. In order to prevent a repeat of the CoreStates problems, the new Wachovia gradually phased-in the conversion of legacy Wachovia computer systems to First Union systems. The company first began converting systems in the southeast United States where both banks had branches, before moving to First Union's branches in the Northeast, which only had to change their signs to reflect the new company name and logo. This process was completed on August 18, 2003, almost 2 years after the merger.[23]
In comparison to the CoreStates purchase, the acquisition of Wachovia by First Union was considered successful by analysts. The company's deliberate pace of conversion prevented any large-scale customer attrition. In fact, Wachovia was ranked number one in customer satisfaction among major banks by the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index for every year after the merger.[24]
As business halted for the weekend, Wachovia was already in FDIC-brokered talks with Citigroup and Wells Fargo; the latter company initially emerged as the frontrunner to acquire the ailing Wachovia's banking operations. Wells Fargo originally backed out of this particular deal due to concerns over Wachovia's commercial loans. With no deal in place as September 28 dawned, regulators were concerned that Wachovia wouldn't have enough short-term funding to open for business the next day. In order to obtain enough liquidity to do business, banks usually depend on short-term loans to each other. However, the markets had been so battered by a credit crisis related to the housing bubble that banks were skittish about making such loans. Under the circumstances, regulators feared that if customers pulled out more money, Wachovia wouldn't have enough liquidity to meet its obligations. This would have resulted in a failure dwarfing that of WaMu.[46]
When FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair got word of Wachovia's situation, she initially decided to handle the situation the same way she handled WaMu a day earlier. Under this scenario, the Comptroller of the Currency would have seized Wachovia's banking assets (Wachovia Bank, N.A. and Wachovia Bank of Delaware, N.A.) and placed them under the receivership of the FDIC who would have then sold the banking assets to the highest bidder. Bair called Steel on September 28 and told him that the FDIC would be auctioning off Wachovia's banking assets. Bair felt this would best protect the small banks. However, several Federal regulators, led by New York Fed President Tim Geithner, felt such a course would be politically unjustifiable so soon after WaMu's seizure.[47]
Though Citigroup was providing the liquidity that allowed Wachovia to continue to operate, Wells Fargo and Wachovia announced on October 3, 2008, that they had agreed to merge in an all-stock transaction requiring no government involvement. Wells Fargo announced it had agreed to acquire all of Wachovia for $15.1 billion in stock. Wachovia preferred the Wells Fargo deal because it would be worth more than the Citigroup deal and keep all of its businesses intact. Also, there is far less overlap between the banks, as Wells Fargo is dominant in the West and Midwest compared to the redundant footprint of Wachovia and Citibank along the East Coast. Both companies' boards unanimously approved the merger on the night of October 2.[56]
On October 9, 2008, Citigroup abandoned its attempt to purchase Wachovia's banking assets, allowing the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger to go through. However, Citigroup pursued $60 billion in claims, $20 billion in compensatory and $40 billion in punitive damages, against Wachovia and Wells Fargo for alleged violations of the exclusivity agreement.[61] Wells Fargo settled this dispute with Citigroup Inc. for $100 Million on November 19, 2010.[62]Citigroup may have been pressured by regulators to back out of the deal; Bair endorsed Wells Fargo's bid because it removed the FDIC from the picture. Geithner was furious, claiming that the FDIC's reversal would undermine the government's ability to quickly rescue failing banks. However, Geithner's colleagues at the Fed were not willing to take responsibility for selling Wachovia.[47]
In September 2008, the Internal Revenue Service issued a notice providing tax breaks to companies that acquire troubled banks. According to analysts, these tax breaks were worth billions of dollars to Wells Fargo. Vice Chairman Bill Thomas of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission indicated that these tax breaks may have been a factor in Wells Fargo's decision to purchase Wachovia.[66]
In April 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors had initiated a probe into Wachovia and other U.S. banks for aiding drug money laundering by Mexican and Colombian money-transfer companies, also known as casas de cambio. These companies help Mexican immigrants in the United States send remittances back to family in Mexico, but it is widely known that they also present a significant money-laundering risk. However, not only is it a "lucrative industry" that is able to charge high fees, but Wachovia also viewed it as a way to gain a foothold in the Hispanic banking market.[69]
Wells Fargo Application On October 12, the Board announced its approval of the application and notice under sections 3 and 4 of the BHC Act by Wells Fargo to acquire Wachovia and its banking and nonbanking subsidiaries. In light of the emergency affecting the financial markets, and as permitted by the BHC Act and Federal Reserve regulations, the Board waived public notice of the proposal and shortened the notice period to the primary regulators of the banks and thrifts involved. These agencies, and the Department of Justice, indicated that they had no objection to approval of the proposal.
Like most major urban areas, communities of color inPhiladelphia have been devastated by decades of redlining. In much the same waythat the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have kept developingcountries impoverished and at the mercy of the multinational banks andcorporations by only extending loans with excessively high rates of interest,U.S. banks have withheld home loans from neighborhoods considered poorinvestment risks. This has led to widespread economic decline in these areas.Now laws prohibiting red-lining are under attack from the Bushadministration.
The Wachovia-Wells deal, announced Friday, comes in a turbulent time for banks and financial firms as they grapple with the ongoing credit crisis, which led to the recent bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the failure of Washington Mutual Inc.
The combined company will have total deposits of $787 billion and assets of $1.42 trillion, more than doubling Wells Fargo's totals on both counts. The bank will operate more than 10,000 locations. The two banks currently employ a combined 280,000 people.
That means it hasn't been forced to take the huge number of write-downs that other banks have needed. Under Stumpf the bank also has continued raising its dividend at a time when many other financial institutions are slashing theirs to preserve capital. 041b061a72