How long before Citibank acquires Wachovia? (bankrupt, loans, transaction, buy)

[Humboldt1]

They are in talks. Speculation is that it may happen in the next week or two.

[bale002]

The European-style "universal banking" system, in effect for decades, is quickly becoming prevalent in the US ... Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, WellsFargo, a few others (can somebody list likely candidates? Will Goldman Sachs expand or be taken over?)

From all this I see globalism marching along, not retreating. The field of competition is no longer the US, but the world.

In a future wave I would not be surprised to see mergers among US, Canadian and Mexican banks.

For better and for worse.

[mrstewart]

I heard there a few other institutions looking, but they may not have the cash to cover the transaction. God, I hope it happens. We live in Richmond and Wachovia is a huge employer here.

[goodbyehollywood]

I would guess that Wachovia will definitely be acquired. That idiotic purchase of Golden West at the peak of the housing market killed them. Golden West made almost nothing but those uber-toxic liar loans and would have been one of the first to fall, had deep pockets Wachovia not snapped it up. Conservative Wachovia taking on that kind of risk was pure greed.

We are "thinning the herd" in our financial system. The weak will be gobbled up by the strong, and those that are dying will be picked off one-by-one in the coming weeks. The sooner the better. The market will be plagued by fear and uncertainty until the ones that are teetering either fall or find a safety net.

[KarlaT2]

Huge afterhours transactions on Wachovia tonight.

[rcarrillo]

Wachovia is apparently in talks with Citi, Wells Fargo and others as well. As goodbyehollywood mentioned, their purchasing of a vast Option ARM portfolio at the peak was an incredibly stupid move. They dumped long term strategy and sound business for short term potential.

Much like WAMU and CW jumping into BC and Option ARMs, but worse. They went form 0 to 100 overnight, and at the worst point possible. This goes under "what were they thinking".

[chuck22b]

So, if mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies are happening naturally... why do we need a bail out?

-chuck22b

[mrstewart]

This just occurred to me...IF Wachovia is NOT taken over but the FDIC has to take care of it, what could happen to the executive board of Wachovia? Is this considered malfeasance or nonfeasance due to lack of action earlier or lack of over seeing the powers that be getting us into this mess? I was just wondering...

[Humanoid]

Originally Posted by chuck22b

So, if mergers, acquisitions, and bankruptcies are happening naturally... why do we need a bail out?

-chuck22b

Systemic risk.

The market reaction to the WaMu failure is funny and interesting. So many people were obviously betting on bailouts of this big companies. The FED etc were caught off guard with the Bear Sterns situation. But by that time Lehman (and now WaMu) failed the FED, etc understood matters much better and moves to prevent systemic risk have already been made (Many new FED faculties were created after the Bear Sterns bailout).

Incidentally, when Humbolt1 claimed these companies were "too big to fail" just a bit ago I mentioned the moves by the FED that apparently nobody was paying attention to, or at least didn't understand what they were trying to achieve.

Anyhow, any merger etc with Wachovia is going to be a shotgun marriage. Buying Wachovia is fairly stupid. The situation is just like WaMu. Why acquire it now, when you can buy the assets you want from the FDIC for less? Citi is is doing bad themselves, it makes little sense for them to acquire Wachovia without ....you know a shotgun to the head. I wonder when the market is going to start taking interest in Citi's off the balance sheet toxic soup:

Bloomberg.com: Exclusive

[grannynancy]

I actually heard on the news today that a Spanish bank may be taking on Wachovia.....eeeek .. we are definetly alreay owned by too many foreign countries to get out from under it.