So Wells Fargo & Co. missed an opportunity at becoming one of the nation's three largest banks, but chairman Richard Kovacevich still feels like," a kid in a candy store, " according to a
Reuters report. Yeah, Wells Fargo was in the running to buy Wachovia Corp., but the deal
didn't go down due to a concern over loans, according to Jeff Matthews. So what's a bank with capital to do now? Here is a roundup of the latest reports and discussions on Wells Fargo's potential targets and also acquirers.
Continue reading below
As Dealscape's Gerald Magpily points out, regional banks
could now be on the radar screen of Well's Fargo. The regional banks likely to be most prominent on Wells Fargo's
radar screen are National City, Regions Financial Corp. and Fifth Third
Bancorp.
Of the three regional banks, Regions
Financial seems to have the strongest balance sheet, generating around
$500 million in profit so far this year.
Michael Farr, president of investment management company Farr, Miller
& Washington, offered another possibility in a
Reuters report. Farr said the bank might be looking at Legg Mason Inc. or another asset management business.
On the other hand, Wells Fargo had $609 billion in assets and about 3,300 bank
branches as of June 30, concentrated in the western two-thirds of the
country. One of the largest investors in the bank is Warren Buffett's
Berkshire Hathaway Inc., which also just invested
$5 billion in Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Larger investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley might think of acquiring Wells Fargo as they
morph into holding banks.
Here's the chatter about Wells Fargo on the Yahoo! and Google discussion boards:
Do you have any opinion on what Wells Fargo's future could be? If so, join in the discussion and leave us a comment below.
- Maria Woehr
Comments
There is no way WFC is troubled loan free. I believe they will take some huge losses soon. There is no way they were that perfect