Wachovia

The Wachovia Corporation [ wʌkoʊvɪə ], headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, was one of the largest banking chains in the United States. It was founded in 1879 in Winston (now Winston- Salem), North Carolina. The Wachovia Corporation had approximately 120,000 employees (fixed assets 808.9 billion U.S. dollars).

History

The bank merged with the 1911 (1893 based ) Wachovia Loan and Trust, the new company was since the name Wachovia Corporation.

1986 Wachovia bought First National Bank of Atlanta, in the following years, a number of smaller banks and financial service providers.

In 2001, the Wachovia Corporation closed surprisingly cooperate with the Union Corporation. Further acquisitions in the years that followed made ​​the Wachovia Corporation for the fourth largest bank in the United States.

In May 2007, took over Wachovia, the great American Stock Exchange brokerage firm AG Edwards for $ 6.8 billion ( 5.0 billion euros ).

Criminal entanglements

The American investigators Robert Mazur revealed that Wachovia Bank was heavily involved in the international money laundering. So to $ 400 billion black money from Mexico have been funneled through the bank accounts to disguise the true origin of the funds.

Financial Crisis 2007/2008

On 14 April 2008 it was announced that Wachovia generated a net loss of approximately two billion dollars in the wake of the financial crisis in 2007. CEO Ken Thompson explains this with " unprecedented economic conditions." Because of the high losses Ken Thompson was released on 2 June 2008 and replaced by Lanty Smith. Particularly affected by the U.S. housing crisis, Wachovia was in 2006 by the successful purchase of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp.. This also took over a $ 122 billion heavy portfolio of loans that had to be devalued in 2008.

On 18 September 2008 it was reported in the press that the ailing investment bank Morgan Stanley, Wachovia held talks about a merger. Two weekends later, Wachovia was a victim of the U.S. housing crisis. Was notified on 29 September 2008 that the banking business is to be sold by Wachovia.

The company should be broken up between the two prospective buyers Citigroup and Wells Fargo, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, October 6, 2008. End of 2008, Wachovia was taken over completely by Wells Fargo.