Wachovia

Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest bank in the Southeastern U.S., hired Credit Suisse First Boston to determine whether it should sell its $8-billion consumer credit card business. Wachovia, which said it is the 12th-largest bank card issuer, also is considering forming a joint venture or keeping the business. The bank has about 2.8 million active consumer card accounts. Its commercial card accounts, with less than $100 million in receivables, aren't part of the review.

Banking giant Wachovia Corp. on Tuesday said it might face federal charges related to stock transactions before a big merger with a former rival, and separate allegations of improper mutual fund trading. The stock transactions followed the 2001 announcement that Charlotte, N.C.-based First Union Corp. would buy Wachovia and take its name. The bank said the Securities and Exchange Commission had laid out its claims in a so-called Wells notice.

The mortgage meltdown scorched the executive suites of two more banks Monday as Wachovia Corp. fired its chief executive and Washington Mutual Inc. knuckled under to shareholders and stripped its CEO of his chairman's post. Charlotte, N.C.-based Wachovia and Seattle-based WaMu are prominent in California retail banking and are big players in home loans, on which they've lost billions.

Wachovia Corp. will pay $25 million to end a 28-month probe involving accusations of potential conflicts of interest between its stock analysts and investment banking business. The settlement with the bank's Wachovia Capital Markets unit was announced Wednesday by the North American Securities Administrators Assn., a group of state regulators. It is related to the settlement in 2003 and 2004 by 12 other banks with state and federal regulators, led by New York Atty. Gen.

A North Carolina state judge upheld First Union Corp.'s agreement to buy Wachovia Corp. for $14.5 billion, rejecting a challenge by rival bidder SunTrust Banks Inc. The ruling by Special Superior Court Judge Ben Tennille cleared the path for a shareholder vote Aug. 3 on the agreement between the two North Carolina-based banks. After the boards of First Union and Wachovia approved merger plans in April, Atlanta-based SunTrust launched its own $15.

Federal antitrust regulators cleared Wells Fargo & Co.'s $11.7-billion acquisition of Wachovia Corp., capping a weeklong battle for the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank. The rapid approval comes a day after New York-based Citigroup Inc. walked away from its own efforts to buy Wachovia. Late Thursday, Citigroup broke off talks with Wells Fargo and federal regulators after the suitors failed to reach an agreement over how to split up the bank. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. said it would proceed with the purchase and planned to complete the deal by the end of the fourth quarter.

SunTrust Banks Inc. said it launched an unsolicited $13.5-billion bid for fellow regional bank Wachovia Corp., topping an earlier offer from First Union Corp., in a drive to widen its reach in the Southeast. SunTrust's surprise bid, which values Winston Salem, N.C.-based Wachovia at $64.86 a share, is about 6% higher than a rival offer of $61.16 a share from No. 6 U.S. bank holding company First Union.

First Union Corp. defended its $12.6-billion takeover offer for Wachovia Corp. as superior to a surprise $13.5-billion bid from rival suitor SunTrust Banks Inc., but it did not try to trump the higher offer. The Charlotte, N.C.-based company said its offer is not much lower than that of Atlanta-based SunTrust and would result in greater earnings, capital and savings.

Wachovia Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. bank, pushed up its first-quarter earnings release by four days as the Wall Street Journal reported that the company might receive a capital infusion of as much as $7 billion. Wachovia plans to announce results no later than 6 a.m. New York time today, the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank said in a statement. The bank had previously planned to release its earnings Friday.

Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp. are notifying thousands of customers that their accounts may have been breached in a theft of financial records from four banks. The theft was exposed last month when police in Hackensack, N.J., charged nine people, including a business owner, a New Jersey state worker and seven bank employees, in a plot to steal financial records of thousands of customers, which were then sold to collection agencies.