Wells Fargo (WFC) Swoops in to Steal Wachovia (WB) from Citigroup (C)

I keep saying historical times. I keep seeing new things I've never seen before. One company coming in and taking away a company that has already agreed to a contract with another (government assisted no less). Boggling. This says "Warren Buffet is confident the mother of all bailout passes and he can unload Wachovia option ARM loans onto the US people"

• In an abrupt change of course, Wachovia said Friday it agreed to be acquired by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. in a $15.1 billion all-stock deal, trumping rival suitor Citigroup's plan to acquire Wachovia's banking operations. A key difference is that the Wachovia deal will be done without government assistance, while the Citigroup deal would have been done with the help of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (ah, it's all in the fine print - there will be PLENTY of government assistance - just on the back end, not the front end)
• Wachovia Corp. shareholders will receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia stock they own, valuing Wachovia at about $7 per share. This is a nearly 80 percent premium over the stock's Thursday closing price of $3.91. Shares closed at $10 last Friday, the last trading session before the deal with Citigroup Inc. was announced.

• Wells Fargo will record merger and integration charges of about $10 billion, but says it expects earnings to be boosted within the first year after the acquisition closes. No government assistance is part of the deal terms. Additionally, Wells Fargo plans to issue up to $20 billion of stock, primarily common stock, to maintain a strong capital position.

• The combined company will have total deposits of $787 billion and assets of $1.42 trillion, more than doubling Wells Fargo's totals on both counts. The bank will operate more than 10,000 locations. The two banks currently employ a combined 280,000 people.

• On Monday, Citigroup agreed to buy Wachovia's banking operations for $2.16 billion in a deal orchestrated by the federal government. That deal, which had been approved by the boards of both companies, was still subject to approval by Wachovia's shareholders and regulators.