العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
EspañolWACHOVIA
(Redirected from Wachovia Bank)
'Wachovia Corporation' (), based in Charlotte, North Carolina is one of the largest banking chains in the United States. This is a legitimate edit, not vandalism, really. Wachovia is a diversified financial services company that provides a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. It is one of the largest providers of financial services in the United States, operating financial centers in 21 states and Washington, D.C., with locations from Connecticut to Florida and west to California. It also serves retail brokerage clients under the name Wachovia Securities nationwide as well as in six Latin American countries, and investment banking clients in selected industries nationwide. Wachovia provides global services through more than 40 offices around the world.
Wachovia is the fifth largest bank in the United States by market capitalization. The company is divided into four divisions: General Bank, Wealth Management, Capital Management, and Corporate and Investment Banking.
The general bank services retail, small business and commercial customers. The banks is number three by national deposit market share. Wealth management serves the high net worth, personal trust, and insurance business. Wachovia is the fourth largest wealth manager in the United States. Capital management provides asset management, retirement, and retail brokerage services. Wachovia is currently the third largest full service retail brokerage. The corporate and investment bank is a fully integrated capital raising, market making, and financial advisory services bank.
The company traces its history to December 31, 1781, when the first bank in the United States was chartered as Bank of North America. The company continues to run a branch in Philadelphia that has operated since its inception in 1781, making it the longest continuously operated branch in America.
Main articles: Wachovia, North Carolina
'Wachovia', pronounced wah-KO-vee-yah, has its origins in the Latin form of the Austrian name Wachau. When Moravian settlers arrived in Bethabara, North Carolina, in 1753, they gave this name to the land they acquired, because it resembled a valley along the Danube River called ''Wachau''. The area formerly known as Wachovia now makes up most of Forsyth County, and the largest city is now Winston-Salem.
Today's Wachovia Corporation was originally created by the merger of the legacy Wachovia Corporation and First Union Corporation. While the transaction was billed as a merger of equals, the transaction was actually a purchase of the legacy Wachovia by Charlotte-based First Union. First Union then took the Wachovia name.
Legacy Wachovia Corporation traced its history to 1879, when it was established as the Wachovia National Bank in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The bank merged with Wachovia Loan and Trust (founded 1893) in 1911 and remained located in Winston-Salem. On December 12 1986, Wachovia took over First Atlanta. Founded as Atlanta National Bank on September 14, 1865, and later renamed to First National Bank of Atlanta, this institution was the oldest national bank in Atlanta. This purchase made legacy Wachovia one of the few companies with dual headquarters: one in Winston-Salem and one in Atlanta. In 1998, legacy Wachovia acquired two Virginia-based banks, Jefferson National Bank and Central Fidelity Bank. In 2000, legacy Wachovia made its final purchase, which was Republic Security Bank, giving its first entry into Florida.
'First Union Corporation' had its beginning as Union National Bank on June 2, 1908. Its owner, H.M. Victor, developed a reputation as a conservative banker. His insistence on high credit-worthiness among borrowers became a hallmark of the institution.
The bank merged with First National Bank and Trust Company of Asheville in 1958 to become the First Union National Bank of North Carolina. Over subsequent decades, but particularly during the 1990s, First Union purchased over 80 other banks before purchasing Wachovia, Predecessor companies include the Bank of North America, the first bank proposed, chartered and incorporated in America in 1781 as well as the first bank in the country to open its doors in January 1782.
CoreStates Financial Corporation, headquartered in Philadelphia, was acquired by First Union in April 1998. At the time, this was the largest merger in US banking history.
This acquisition was burdened with many problems. Many of these problems arose when First Union attempted to rapidly integrate CoreStates' systems into First Union's. CoreStates tellers did not receive sufficient training with the new systems and First Union and CoreStates' systems were unable to communicate with each other. This led to such problems as account access issues and payments not being correctly applied to loans.
Following the merger, First Union experienced a 19 percent attrition rate because of poor customer service and account issues. In addition, First Union experienced several years of lower earnings and no dividend growth. First Union also had to restructure and lay off thousands of employees in 1999, partly as a result of the purchase of CoreStates.
On June 30, 1998, First Union paid $2.1 billion for The Money Store. Two years later, it closed the unit, writing off $1.7 billion.[3]
On April 16, 2001, Charlotte based First Union Corporation announced it would merge with Winston-Salem based Wachovia Corporation. This was viewed with great surprise by the financial press and security analysts. While Wachovia had been viewed as an acquisition candidate after running into problems with earnings and credit quality in 2000, the suitor shocked analysts as many speculated that Wachovia would be sold to SunTrust.
As an important part of the deal, First Union would shed its name and assumed the Wachovia identity and stock ticker. Analysts said this move was most likely to help First Union acquire a new identity, as Wachovia's reputation was far better with consumers than First Union. At the same time, Wachovia's name and corporate identity would survive.
The deal was met with criticism and doubt by several groups. Analysts were concerned of First Union's ability to merge with another large company because of the CoreStates deal. Citizens and politicians of Winston-Salem suffered from a hurt of their civic pride because the city would lose Wachovia's corporate headquarters to Charlotte, partly because Winston-Salem is a much smaller city than Charlotte. The city of Winston-Salem was concerned both by job losses by the move and the loss of stature from losing a corporation. First Union was alarmed by the potential deposit attrition and customer loss in the city.[4] First Union responded to these concerns by placing the wealth management and Carolinas-region headquarters in Winston-Salem.
On May 14, 2001, Atlanta-based SunTrust announced a rival takeover bid for Wachovia, the first hostile takeover attempt in the banking sector in many years. In its effort to make the deal appeal to investors, SunTrust argued that it would provide a smoother transition than First Union and offered a higher cash price for Wachovia stock than First Union. Long a rumored suitor for Wachovia, SunTrust had been in on-again off-again merger talks with it over the course of many years, with both Wachovia and SunTrust eventually confirming the most recent effort took place during the winter of 2000 before Wachovia terminated the discussions.
Wachovia's board of directors rejected SunTrust's offer and pledged to continue its merger with First Union. SunTrust continued its hostile takeover attempt, and a bitter battle between SunTrust and First Union took place over the summer. Both banks increased their offers for Wachovia, took out newspaper ads, mailed letters to shareholders, and initiated court battles to challenge each other's takeover bids. First Union even used its lobby power to have the North Carolina general assembly change a corporate governance law in order to make it more difficult for SunTrust to purchase Wachovia.
On August 3, 2001, Wachovia shareholders approved the First Union deal. They rejected SunTrust's attempts to elect a new board of directors for Wachovia, and thus, ended SunTrust's hostile takeover.
Another problem concerned each banks' credit card divisions. In April 2001, Wachovia agreed to sell its $8 billion credit card portfolio to Bank One. The cards, which would have still been branded as Wachovia, would have been issued through Bank One's First USA division. First Union had sold its credit card portfolio to MBNA in August 2000. After entering into negotiations, the new Wachovia agreed to buy back its portfolio from Bank One in September 2001 and resell it to MBNA. Wachovia paid Bank One a $350 million termination fee.
On September 4, 2001, First Union and Wachovia officially merged to form the new Wachovia Corporation.
In order to prevent a repeat of the CoreStates fiasco, the new Wachovia took a deliberately long period of time to combine the banking operations of the new company. Over a period of several years, legacy Wachovia computer systems were converted to First Union systems. The company first began converting systems in the southeast United States (where both banks had branches) before moving to the Northeast, where First Union branches only had to change their signs to reflect the new company name and logo. This process officially ended on August 18, 2003, almost 2 years after the merger took place.
In comparison to the CoreStates purchase, the merger of First Union and Wachovia has been a success. The company's slow strategy to combine seems to have prevented large customer attrition rates. In fact, every year since the merger, Wachovia has been ranked number one in customer satisfaction among major banks by the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index.[5] In addition, the company's stock price has remained strong, and provided a good return to legacy Wachovia shareholders, in contrast to SunTrust's claims during the takeover attempt.
When Wachovia and First Union merged, the multiple skyscrapers with First Union's name came under Wachovia's name. Charlotte, North Carolina's One, Two, Three, and Four First Union buildings became One, Two, Three, and Four, Wachovia Center (respectively), and the 55-story First Union Financial Center in downtown Miami became the Wachovia Financial Center. The merger also affected the names of the indoor professional sports arenas in Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Formerly known as the First Union Center and the First Union Spectrum (both Philadelphia) and First Union Arena (Wilkes-Barre), they are now known as the Wachovia Center, Wachovia Spectrum, and Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.
On November 1, 2004, Wachovia completed the acquisition of Birmingham, Alabama-based banking competitor SouthTrust Corporation, a transaction valued at $14.3 billion. The merger created the largest bank in the southeast United States, and the fourth largest bank in terms of holdings, and the second largest in terms of number of branches. Integration was completed by the end of 2005.
Westcorp, Western Financial Bank’s parent company, WFS Financial Inc. and Wachovia announced their intention to merge in September 2005. Westcorp and WFS Financial Inc. shareholders approved the merger on Jan. 6, 2006 and on March 1, 2006, the merger was complete. The merger with Westcorp makes Wachovia the ninth-largest auto finance lender in the competitive U.S. auto finance market and provides Wachovia with a small retail and commercial banking presence in southern California. On February 12th, 2007, the former 19 WFB branches opened under the Wachovia name. These are just a few of the many branches Wachovia will have on the west coast after integrating World Savings Bank, which was acquired from a separate merger with Golden West Financial Corporation.
Wachovia agreed to purchase Golden West Financial for $25.5 billion on May 7 2006.[6] This acquisition will give Wachovia an additional 285-branch network spanning 10 states. Wachovia will greatly raise its profile in California, where Golden West holds $32 billion in deposits and operates 123 branches. Wachovia acquires Golden West Financial
Golden West, which operates branches under the name World Savings Bank, is the second largest savings and loan in the United States. The business was a small savings and loan in the San Francisco Bay area when it was purchased in 1963 for $4 million by Herbert and Marion Sandler. By the time Wachovia announced its acquisition, Golden West had over $125 billion in assets and 11,600 employees. The Sandlers have agreed to remain on the board at Wachovia. In 2006, Golden West Financial was named the "Most Admired Company" in the mortgage services business by Fortune magazine.[7]
By October 2 2006 Wachovia had completed the acquisition of Golden West Financial Corporation. The integration process is scheduled to be completed mid-2008.[6]
On May 31, 2007, Wachovia announced plans to purchase A.G. Edwards for $6.8 billion to create the United States' second largest retail brokerage firm.[9]
Wachovia is currently ranked number 46 on the Fortune 500 list for 2007,[10] and is the fourth largest bank holding company in the United States, with banking centers in 15 east coast states and Washington, D.C. It also operates Wachovia Securities, its brokerage services subsidiary.
Wachovia's asset management division operates as Evergreen Investments in the United States and as Wachovia Global Asset Management abroad.
Wachovia Securities and the Prudential Securities Division of Prudential Financial, Inc. combined to form Wachovia Securities LLC on July 1, 2003. Wachovia owns 62% of this entity, while Prudential Financial owns 38%, making the new firm the third largest full service retail brokerage firm based on assets.
In June of 2005, Wachovia negotiated to purchase monoline credit card company MBNA. However, the deal fell through when Wachovia balked at MBNA's purchase price. Within a week of the deal's collapse, MBNA entered into an agreement to be purchased by Wachovia's chief rival, Bank of America. Wachovia received $100 million out of this deal, the result of an agreement Wachovia predecessor First Union made in 2000 when it sold its credit card portfolio to MBNA. This agreement required MBNA to pay this sum if it were ever sold to Bank of America. In late 2005 Wachovia announced that it would end its relationship with MBNA and start up its own credit card division so that the bank could issue its own Visa cards.
In the first quarter of 2007, Wachovia reported $2.3 billion in earnings, including acquisitions and divestitures.[11]
A ''New York Times'' article titled "Corporate Profits, From Data Sold to Thieves"[12] published on May 20 2007 described Wachovia's negligence in screening on taking action against companies connected to identity theft. These companies used stolen identities to remove funds from personal Wachovia bank accounts via unsigned checks.
The article goes on to say "In all, Wachovia accepted $142 million of unsigned checks from companies that made unauthorized withdrawals from thousands of accounts, federal prosecutors say. Wachovia collected millions of dollars in fees from those companies, even as it failed to act on warnings, according to records." Furthermore, the article adds "In a lawsuit filed last year, the United States attorney in Philadelphia said Wachovia received thousands of warnings that it was processing fraudulent checks, but ignored them."
1. Wachovia Company Facts
2.
3. http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2000/07/03/story7.html?t=printable
4. "Wachovia and First Union announce Winston-Salem as base for the new Wachovia's Wealth Management Business" Wachovia press release, August 30, 2001
5. Scores By Industry
6.
7. Fortune: America's Most Admired Companies 2006
8.
9. Wachovia to buy A.G. Edwards for .8B
10. Fortune 500 2007
11. Wachovia Earns .30 Billion, EPS Up 10% to .20 in 1st Quarter 2007
12. Corporate Profits, From Data Sold to Thieves
★ Wachovia Corporate Website
★ Wachovia Securities Website
★ Yahoo! - Wachovia Corporation Company Profile
★ CoreStates
★ First Union
★ SouthTrust
★ Westcorp
★ Western Financial Bank
★ Golden West
★ World Savings
One Wachovia Tower headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina
'Wachovia Corporation' (), based in Charlotte, North Carolina is one of the largest banking chains in the United States. This is a legitimate edit, not vandalism, really. Wachovia is a diversified financial services company that provides a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. It is one of the largest providers of financial services in the United States, operating financial centers in 21 states and Washington, D.C., with locations from Connecticut to Florida and west to California. It also serves retail brokerage clients under the name Wachovia Securities nationwide as well as in six Latin American countries, and investment banking clients in selected industries nationwide. Wachovia provides global services through more than 40 offices around the world.
Corporate information
Wachovia is the fifth largest bank in the United States by market capitalization. The company is divided into four divisions: General Bank, Wealth Management, Capital Management, and Corporate and Investment Banking.
The general bank services retail, small business and commercial customers. The banks is number three by national deposit market share. Wealth management serves the high net worth, personal trust, and insurance business. Wachovia is the fourth largest wealth manager in the United States. Capital management provides asset management, retirement, and retail brokerage services. Wachovia is currently the third largest full service retail brokerage. The corporate and investment bank is a fully integrated capital raising, market making, and financial advisory services bank.
The company traces its history to December 31, 1781, when the first bank in the United States was chartered as Bank of North America. The company continues to run a branch in Philadelphia that has operated since its inception in 1781, making it the longest continuously operated branch in America.
Origin of corporate name
Main articles: Wachovia, North Carolina
'Wachovia', pronounced wah-KO-vee-yah, has its origins in the Latin form of the Austrian name Wachau. When Moravian settlers arrived in Bethabara, North Carolina, in 1753, they gave this name to the land they acquired, because it resembled a valley along the Danube River called ''Wachau''. The area formerly known as Wachovia now makes up most of Forsyth County, and the largest city is now Winston-Salem.
Corporate history
Today's Wachovia Corporation was originally created by the merger of the legacy Wachovia Corporation and First Union Corporation. While the transaction was billed as a merger of equals, the transaction was actually a purchase of the legacy Wachovia by Charlotte-based First Union. First Union then took the Wachovia name.
Wachovia National Bank
Legacy Wachovia logo
Legacy Wachovia Corporation traced its history to 1879, when it was established as the Wachovia National Bank in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The bank merged with Wachovia Loan and Trust (founded 1893) in 1911 and remained located in Winston-Salem. On December 12 1986, Wachovia took over First Atlanta. Founded as Atlanta National Bank on September 14, 1865, and later renamed to First National Bank of Atlanta, this institution was the oldest national bank in Atlanta. This purchase made legacy Wachovia one of the few companies with dual headquarters: one in Winston-Salem and one in Atlanta. In 1998, legacy Wachovia acquired two Virginia-based banks, Jefferson National Bank and Central Fidelity Bank. In 2000, legacy Wachovia made its final purchase, which was Republic Security Bank, giving its first entry into Florida.
First Union
Longtime First Union logo
The bank merged with First National Bank and Trust Company of Asheville in 1958 to become the First Union National Bank of North Carolina. Over subsequent decades, but particularly during the 1990s, First Union purchased over 80 other banks before purchasing Wachovia, Predecessor companies include the Bank of North America, the first bank proposed, chartered and incorporated in America in 1781 as well as the first bank in the country to open its doors in January 1782.
CoreStates Financial purchase
CoreStates logo
CoreStates Financial Corporation, headquartered in Philadelphia, was acquired by First Union in April 1998. At the time, this was the largest merger in US banking history.
This acquisition was burdened with many problems. Many of these problems arose when First Union attempted to rapidly integrate CoreStates' systems into First Union's. CoreStates tellers did not receive sufficient training with the new systems and First Union and CoreStates' systems were unable to communicate with each other. This led to such problems as account access issues and payments not being correctly applied to loans.
Following the merger, First Union experienced a 19 percent attrition rate because of poor customer service and account issues. In addition, First Union experienced several years of lower earnings and no dividend growth. First Union also had to restructure and lay off thousands of employees in 1999, partly as a result of the purchase of CoreStates.
The Money Store
On June 30, 1998, First Union paid $2.1 billion for The Money Store. Two years later, it closed the unit, writing off $1.7 billion.[3]
Merger of First Union and Wachovia
On April 16, 2001, Charlotte based First Union Corporation announced it would merge with Winston-Salem based Wachovia Corporation. This was viewed with great surprise by the financial press and security analysts. While Wachovia had been viewed as an acquisition candidate after running into problems with earnings and credit quality in 2000, the suitor shocked analysts as many speculated that Wachovia would be sold to SunTrust.
As an important part of the deal, First Union would shed its name and assumed the Wachovia identity and stock ticker. Analysts said this move was most likely to help First Union acquire a new identity, as Wachovia's reputation was far better with consumers than First Union. At the same time, Wachovia's name and corporate identity would survive.
The deal was met with criticism and doubt by several groups. Analysts were concerned of First Union's ability to merge with another large company because of the CoreStates deal. Citizens and politicians of Winston-Salem suffered from a hurt of their civic pride because the city would lose Wachovia's corporate headquarters to Charlotte, partly because Winston-Salem is a much smaller city than Charlotte. The city of Winston-Salem was concerned both by job losses by the move and the loss of stature from losing a corporation. First Union was alarmed by the potential deposit attrition and customer loss in the city.[4] First Union responded to these concerns by placing the wealth management and Carolinas-region headquarters in Winston-Salem.
The Wachovia Center in Winston-Salem
Wachovia's board of directors rejected SunTrust's offer and pledged to continue its merger with First Union. SunTrust continued its hostile takeover attempt, and a bitter battle between SunTrust and First Union took place over the summer. Both banks increased their offers for Wachovia, took out newspaper ads, mailed letters to shareholders, and initiated court battles to challenge each other's takeover bids. First Union even used its lobby power to have the North Carolina general assembly change a corporate governance law in order to make it more difficult for SunTrust to purchase Wachovia.
On August 3, 2001, Wachovia shareholders approved the First Union deal. They rejected SunTrust's attempts to elect a new board of directors for Wachovia, and thus, ended SunTrust's hostile takeover.
Another problem concerned each banks' credit card divisions. In April 2001, Wachovia agreed to sell its $8 billion credit card portfolio to Bank One. The cards, which would have still been branded as Wachovia, would have been issued through Bank One's First USA division. First Union had sold its credit card portfolio to MBNA in August 2000. After entering into negotiations, the new Wachovia agreed to buy back its portfolio from Bank One in September 2001 and resell it to MBNA. Wachovia paid Bank One a $350 million termination fee.
On September 4, 2001, First Union and Wachovia officially merged to form the new Wachovia Corporation.
In order to prevent a repeat of the CoreStates fiasco, the new Wachovia took a deliberately long period of time to combine the banking operations of the new company. Over a period of several years, legacy Wachovia computer systems were converted to First Union systems. The company first began converting systems in the southeast United States (where both banks had branches) before moving to the Northeast, where First Union branches only had to change their signs to reflect the new company name and logo. This process officially ended on August 18, 2003, almost 2 years after the merger took place.
In comparison to the CoreStates purchase, the merger of First Union and Wachovia has been a success. The company's slow strategy to combine seems to have prevented large customer attrition rates. In fact, every year since the merger, Wachovia has been ranked number one in customer satisfaction among major banks by the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index.[5] In addition, the company's stock price has remained strong, and provided a good return to legacy Wachovia shareholders, in contrast to SunTrust's claims during the takeover attempt.
When Wachovia and First Union merged, the multiple skyscrapers with First Union's name came under Wachovia's name. Charlotte, North Carolina's One, Two, Three, and Four First Union buildings became One, Two, Three, and Four, Wachovia Center (respectively), and the 55-story First Union Financial Center in downtown Miami became the Wachovia Financial Center. The merger also affected the names of the indoor professional sports arenas in Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Formerly known as the First Union Center and the First Union Spectrum (both Philadelphia) and First Union Arena (Wilkes-Barre), they are now known as the Wachovia Center, Wachovia Spectrum, and Wachovia Arena at Casey Plaza.
Acquisitions since 2001
SouthTrust
SouthTrust logo
On November 1, 2004, Wachovia completed the acquisition of Birmingham, Alabama-based banking competitor SouthTrust Corporation, a transaction valued at $14.3 billion. The merger created the largest bank in the southeast United States, and the fourth largest bank in terms of holdings, and the second largest in terms of number of branches. Integration was completed by the end of 2005.
Westcorp
Westcorp logo
Westcorp, Western Financial Bank’s parent company, WFS Financial Inc. and Wachovia announced their intention to merge in September 2005. Westcorp and WFS Financial Inc. shareholders approved the merger on Jan. 6, 2006 and on March 1, 2006, the merger was complete. The merger with Westcorp makes Wachovia the ninth-largest auto finance lender in the competitive U.S. auto finance market and provides Wachovia with a small retail and commercial banking presence in southern California. On February 12th, 2007, the former 19 WFB branches opened under the Wachovia name. These are just a few of the many branches Wachovia will have on the west coast after integrating World Savings Bank, which was acquired from a separate merger with Golden West Financial Corporation.
Golden West Financial
Golden West logo
Wachovia agreed to purchase Golden West Financial for $25.5 billion on May 7 2006.[6] This acquisition will give Wachovia an additional 285-branch network spanning 10 states. Wachovia will greatly raise its profile in California, where Golden West holds $32 billion in deposits and operates 123 branches. Wachovia acquires Golden West Financial
Golden West, which operates branches under the name World Savings Bank, is the second largest savings and loan in the United States. The business was a small savings and loan in the San Francisco Bay area when it was purchased in 1963 for $4 million by Herbert and Marion Sandler. By the time Wachovia announced its acquisition, Golden West had over $125 billion in assets and 11,600 employees. The Sandlers have agreed to remain on the board at Wachovia. In 2006, Golden West Financial was named the "Most Admired Company" in the mortgage services business by Fortune magazine.[7]
By October 2 2006 Wachovia had completed the acquisition of Golden West Financial Corporation. The integration process is scheduled to be completed mid-2008.[6]
A.G. Edwards
On May 31, 2007, Wachovia announced plans to purchase A.G. Edwards for $6.8 billion to create the United States' second largest retail brokerage firm.[9]
Wachovia today
Atlanta, Georgia Headquarters at Atlantic Station
Wachovia is currently ranked number 46 on the Fortune 500 list for 2007,[10] and is the fourth largest bank holding company in the United States, with banking centers in 15 east coast states and Washington, D.C. It also operates Wachovia Securities, its brokerage services subsidiary.
Wachovia's asset management division operates as Evergreen Investments in the United States and as Wachovia Global Asset Management abroad.
Wachovia Securities and the Prudential Securities Division of Prudential Financial, Inc. combined to form Wachovia Securities LLC on July 1, 2003. Wachovia owns 62% of this entity, while Prudential Financial owns 38%, making the new firm the third largest full service retail brokerage firm based on assets.
In June of 2005, Wachovia negotiated to purchase monoline credit card company MBNA. However, the deal fell through when Wachovia balked at MBNA's purchase price. Within a week of the deal's collapse, MBNA entered into an agreement to be purchased by Wachovia's chief rival, Bank of America. Wachovia received $100 million out of this deal, the result of an agreement Wachovia predecessor First Union made in 2000 when it sold its credit card portfolio to MBNA. This agreement required MBNA to pay this sum if it were ever sold to Bank of America. In late 2005 Wachovia announced that it would end its relationship with MBNA and start up its own credit card division so that the bank could issue its own Visa cards.
In the first quarter of 2007, Wachovia reported $2.3 billion in earnings, including acquisitions and divestitures.[11]
Controversies
A ''New York Times'' article titled "Corporate Profits, From Data Sold to Thieves"[12] published on May 20 2007 described Wachovia's negligence in screening on taking action against companies connected to identity theft. These companies used stolen identities to remove funds from personal Wachovia bank accounts via unsigned checks.
The article goes on to say "In all, Wachovia accepted $142 million of unsigned checks from companies that made unauthorized withdrawals from thousands of accounts, federal prosecutors say. Wachovia collected millions of dollars in fees from those companies, even as it failed to act on warnings, according to records." Furthermore, the article adds "In a lawsuit filed last year, the United States attorney in Philadelphia said Wachovia received thousands of warnings that it was processing fraudulent checks, but ignored them."
References
1. Wachovia Company Facts
2.
3. http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2000/07/03/story7.html?t=printable
4. "Wachovia and First Union announce Winston-Salem as base for the new Wachovia's Wealth Management Business" Wachovia press release, August 30, 2001
5. Scores By Industry
6.
7. Fortune: America's Most Admired Companies 2006
8.
9. Wachovia to buy A.G. Edwards for .8B
10. Fortune 500 2007
11. Wachovia Earns .30 Billion, EPS Up 10% to .20 in 1st Quarter 2007
12. Corporate Profits, From Data Sold to Thieves
External links
★ Wachovia Corporate Website
★ Wachovia Securities Website
★ Yahoo! - Wachovia Corporation Company Profile
Links to acquired companies
★ CoreStates
★ First Union
★ SouthTrust
★ Westcorp
★ Western Financial Bank
★ Golden West
★ World Savings
This article provided by Wikipedia. To edit the contents of this article, click here for original source.
psst.. try this: add to faves
Featured Companies
| Golf Holidays International | |
| Destinations Unlimited |
Wachovia Companies
Below is the list of travel companies in Wachovia we have in our travel directory
- Travel Agents (1)
