Sep 29 2008
Citigroup Buys Wachovia
I was dreading this.
NEW YORK (AP) — In the latest byproduct of the widening global financial crisis, Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corp. in a deal facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Citigroup will absorb up to $42 billion of losses from Wachovia’s $312 billion loan portfolio, with the FDIC covering any remaining losses, the government agency said Monday. Citigroup also will issue $12 billion in preferred stock and warrants to the FDIC.
The deal greatly expands Citigroup’s retail outlets and secures its place among the U.S. banking industry’s Big Three, along with Bank of America Corp. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. But it comes at a cost — Citigroup said Monday it will seek to sell $10 billion in common stock and slashed its quarterly dividend in half to 16 cents to shore up its capital position.
The agreement comes after a fevered weekend courtship in which Citigroup and Wells Fargo & Co. both were reportedly studying the books of Wachovia, which suffers from mounting losses linked to its ill-timed 2006 acquisition of mortgage lender Golden West Financial Corp.
This is bad news for Charlotte and the whole metro area. We are going to lose a lot of high paying jobs because of this. The financial ramifications this purchase is going to have for the whole region and the way it will trickle down could be bad for our housing market in particular, which has managed to mostly skirt the pain other parts of the country have felt.
