Wells Fargo & Company stated today that is has completed its merge with Wachovia. Wells Fargo now has banks in 39 states with 11,000 stores and 12,260 ATMs. At closing Wells Fargo acquired all of Wachovia's shares in a stock for stock transaction. Wachovia shareholders received 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Wachovia stock they owned.

With the acquisition of Wachovia, Wells Fargo has topped JPMorgan to become the largest bank in North America by market value. While current economic conditions have severely hurt the banking sector, Wells Fargo has been able to remain profitable and even raised its dividend. JPMorgan is still the largest bank by assets, the traditional measure of ranking.

Wells Fargo raised $12.6 billion in its common stock offering. Wells Fargo plans to use the additional cash flow to fund its buyout of Wachovia. The offering represents the largest one time Non-IPO capital raise in U.S. history.

Wells Fargo plans to raise $10 billion in order to raise capital. The biggest bank on the U.S. West Coast is in need of additional capital after agreeing to acquire Wells Fargo last month. Wells Fargo had originally planned to raise $20 billion; however, that was before the Treasury agreed to buy $25 billion in preferred stock.

Chairman Dick Kovacevich stated that he expects governments around the world to do whatever it takes in order to propel the economy back on track. Kovacevich said, that "there may be doubts how long [the recovery] will take, but it will get done and sooner than most people think." The banker is anticipating that the economy will quickly bounce back at the beginning of next year.

Despite Wachovia's agreement with Citigroup, Wells Fargo has decided it now wants control of the bank. Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $15.1 billion for the bank much higher than Citigroup's agreement to purchase the bank for $2.1 billion. Under the Wells Fargo deal, each Wachovia shareholder will receive 0.1997 shares of Wells Fargo for every share they own. The move values Wachovia at roughly $7... More

Despite all of the bad news in the financial markets, Wells Fargo actually increased their quarterly dividend to 34 cents a share from 31 cents a share. The bank reported a 23% decrease in second quarter earnings as it set aside $3 billion for loan losses. Its net income was 43 cents a share higher then analysts' forecasts.

Wells Fargo posted fourth quarter earnings of 41 cents per share a 38 percent drop in earnings compared to 64 cents for the same quarter a year prior. The news was expected as Wells Fargo had already announced that they were taking a $1.4 billion loss due to home equity loans. Some analysts are concerned the company will need to take larger hits in 2008, as the company has high exposure to consumer... More

Thursday CEO John Stumpf said that the housing market is in the worst shape since the great depression in 1930. Stumpf echoed these notes while attending a Merrill Lynch & Co. investment conference. He expects the housing market to get even worse and that there are worse times ahead for home owners and their bankers. Wells Fargo is expecting additional losses into 2008.