Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: How many states did Wachovia have a presence in?
Wachovia was a diversified financial services company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Before its acquisition by Wells Fargo and Company in 2008, Wachovia was the fourth-largest bank holding company in the United States, based on total assets.[1] Wachovia provided a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management, and corporate and investment banking products and services. At its height, it was 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.[2] Wachovia provided global services through more than 40 offices around the world.
 On October 3, 2008, Wachovia agreed to be bought by Wells Fargo for about US$14.8 billion in an all-stock transaction. This news came four days after the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) made moves to have Citigroup buy Wachovia for US$2.1 billion. Citigroup protested Wachovia's agreement to sell itself to Wells Fargo and threatened legal action over the matter. However, the deal with Wells Fargo overwhelmingly won shareholder approval since it valued Wachovia at about seven times what Citigroup offered. To further ensure shareholder approval, Wachovia issued Wells Fargo preferred stock that holds 39.9% of the voting power in the company.
In 2001, the firm became known as Wachovia Securities when parent companies of Wheat First Union and IJL Wachovia, First Union and Wachovia Corporation, merged. The newly formed Wachovia then merged the brokerage operations to form Wachovia Securities.
Wachovia agreed to purchase Golden West Financial for a little under $25.5 billion on May 7, 2006.[28][29] This acquisition gave Wachovia an additional 285-branch network spanning 10 states. Wachovia greatly raised its profile in California, where Golden West held $32 billion in deposits and operated 123 branches.[28]
On April 16, 2001, First Union announced it would merge with Wachovia. 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 Atlanta-based SunTrust.
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On May 14, 2001, 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.[17]
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When FDIC Chairwoman Sheila Bair got word of Wachovia's situation, she initially decided to handle the situation like she'd handled WaMu a day earlier. Under this scenario, the Comptroller of the Currency would have seized Wachovia's banking assets (Wachovia Bank, N.A. and Wachovia Bank of Delaware, N.A.) and placed them under the receivership of the FDIC. The FDIC would have then sold the banking assets to the highest bidder. Bair called Steel on September 28 and told him that the FDIC would be auctioning off Wachovia's banking assets. Bair felt this would best protect the small banks. However, several Federal regulators, led by New York Fed President Tim Geithner, felt such a course would be politically unjustifiable so soon after WaMu's seizure.[46]
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.[35] The acquisition closed on October 1, 2007. In early March 2008 Wachovia began to phase out the AG Edwards brand in favor of a unified Wachovia Securities.
This merger was viewed with great surprise by the financial press and security analysts.[14] 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 Atlanta-based SunTrust.[15]
Another issue concerned each bank's credit card division. 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 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.
During the early 2000s, the building became known as the Wachovia Building. Wachovia became the building's largest tenant after merging with First Union Corporation early in the decade. In 2006, Wachovia re-negotiated its lease, which was set to expire in 2010. After exploring other potential new office space in Center City, Wachovia made a deal to stay in the Wachovia Building along with the neighboring Witherspoon Building, the nearby One South Broad, and the Widener Building until the 2020s. The building became known as the Wells Fargo Building after Wells Fargo, which bought Wachovia in 2008, re-branded Wachovia area banks in April 2011. Wells Fargo marketed the change by having a stagecoach carrying Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter and others ride from Philadelphia City Hall to the Wells Fargo Building.
In 2006, they agreed to acquisition of Golden West Financial and its thrift, World Savings, by Wachovia Bank, The acquisition gave Wachovia an additional 285-branch network spanning 10 states. Wachovia greatly raised its profile in California, where Golden West held $32 billion in deposits and operated 123 branches. Wachovia also picked up about $122 billion in option adjustable rate mortgages.
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As business halted for the weekend, Wachovia was already in FDIC-brokered talks with Citigroup and Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo initially emerged as the frontrunner to acquire the ailing Wachovia's banking operations, but backed out due to concerns over Wachovia's commercial loans. With no deal in place as September 28 dawned, regulators were concerned that Wachovia wouldn't have enough short-term funding to open for business the next day. In order to obtain enough liquidity to do business, banks usually depend on short-term loans to each other. However, the markets had been so battered by a credit crisis related to the housing bubble that banks were skittish about making such loans. Under the circumstances, regulators feared that if customers pulled out more money, Wachovia wouldn't have enough liquidity to meet its obligations. This would have resulted in a failure dwarfing that of WaMu.[45]
The "New South" is also meant to describe economic growth in the American South, compared to the economic decline and loss of jobs in other regions of the United States. For example, two of the largest U.S. banks, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, have a major presence in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bank of America is headquartered there, and Wells Fargo has maintained much of the operation of Wachovia after acquiring it in 2008. Charlotte is also home to many other major corporations including Lowe's, Duke Energy, Family Dollar, and Chiquita Brands International.
In 1997, McAdoo stated that African-American families are "frequently regarded as poor, fatherless, dependent of governmental assistance, and involved in producing a multitude of children outside of wedlock." Thomas, Krampe and Newton show that in 2005 39% of African-American children did not live with their biological father and 28% of African-American children did not live with any father representative, compared to 15% of white children who were without a father representative. In the African-American culture, the father representative has historically acted as a role model for two out of every three African-American children. Thomas, Krampe, and Newton relies on a 2002 survey that shows how the father's lack of presence has resulted in several negative effects on children ranging from education performance to teen pregnancy. Whereas the father presence tends to have an opposite effect on children, increasing their chances on having a greater life satisfaction. Thomas, Krampe, and Newton's research shows that 32% of African-American fathers rarely to never visit their children, compared to 11% of white fathers. In 2001, Hamer showed that many African-American youth did not know how to approach their father when in his presence. This survey also concluded that the non resident fathers who did visit their child said that their role consisted of primarily spending time with their children, providing discipline and being a role model. John McAdoo also noted that the residential father role consists of being the provider and decision maker for the household.
The announcement drew some criticism from Wachovia stockholders who felt the dollar-per-share price was too cheap. Some of them planned to try to defeat the deal when it came up for shareholder approval. However, institutional investors such as mutual funds and pension funds controlled 73 percent of Wachovia's stock; individual stockholders would have had to garner a significant amount of support from institutional shareholders to derail the sale. Also, several experts in corporate dealmaking told The Charlotte Observer that such a strategy is very risky since federal regulators helped broker the deal. One financial expert told the Observer that if Wachovia's shareholders voted the deal down, the OCC could have simply seized Wachovia and placed it into the receivership of the FDIC, which would then sell it to Citigroup. Had this happened, Wachovia's shareholders risked being completely wiped out.[54]
Citigroup explored its legal options and demanded that Wachovia and Wells Fargo cease discussions, claiming that Wells Fargo engaged in "tortious interference" with an exclusivity agreement between Citigroup and Wachovia. That agreement states in part that until October 6, 2008 "Wachovia shall not, and shall not permit any of its subsidiaries or any of its or their respective officers, directors, [...] to [...] take any action to facilitate or encourage the submission of any Acquisition Proposal.".[56][57]
Westcorp, Western Financial Bank's parent company, WFS Financial Inc. and Wachovia announced a proposed acquisition by Wachovia in September 2005. Westcorp and WFS Financial Inc. shareholders approved the acquisition on Jan. 6, 2006 and on March 1, 2006, the merger was complete. This acquisition made Wachovia the ninth largest auto finance lender in the competitive U.S. auto finance market and provided Wachovia with a small retail and commercial banking presence in Southern California.[27] On February 12, 2007, the former 19 Western Financial Bank branches opened under the Wachovia name. These branches became the launching point for a much larger Wachovia presence in California with the acquisition and integration of World Savings Bank in 2007.
The building was built for Wachovia bank to replace the nearby Wachovia Building (which was renamed Winston Tower) as the corporation's world headquarters. Wachovia Center, as the tower was originally named, surpassed Winston Tower as Winston-Salem's tallest building. The building was erected during a lull in skyscraper construction in the United States and was the tallest building completed in the entire country during the years of 1995 and 1996. The building remained Wachovia's corporate headquarters from its completion date in 1995 to 2001, when Wachovia merged with First Union. Once the merger was finalized, the corporation, which retained the Wachovia name, decided to locate its headquarters at One Wachovia Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Wachovia subsequently sold Wachovia Center to American Financial Realty Trust in May 2004 for $39.6 million as part of a $546 million deal which included 150 bank properties. Wachovia bank continued to lease space in the tower, mostly for offices of its wealth management division.
On October 4, 2008, a New York state judge issued a temporary injunction blocking the transaction from going forward while the situation was sorted out. Citigroup alleged that they had an exclusivity agreement with Wachovia that barred Wachovia from negotiating with other potential buyers. The injunction was overturned late in the evening on October 5, 2008, by New York state appeals court. Citigroup and Wells Fargo then entered into negotiations brokered by the FDIC to reach an amicable solution to the impasse. Those negotiations failed. Sources say that Citigroup was unwilling to take on more risk than the US$42 billion that would have been the cap under the previous FDIC-backed deal (with the FDIC incurring all losses over US$42 billion). Citigroup did not block the merger, but indicated they would seek damages of US$60 billion for breach of an alleged exclusivity agreement with Wachovia.
While Wachovia Chairman and CEO G. Kennedy "Ken" Thompson had described Golden West as a "crown jewel",[33] investors did not react positively to the deal at the time. Analysts have since said that Wachovia purchased Golden West at the peak of the US housing boom. Wachovia Mortgage's mortgage-related problems led to Wachovia suffering writedowns and losses that far exceeded the price paid in the acquisition, ending up in the fire-sale of Wachovia to Wells Fargo.[34]
In filings unsealed two days before the merger approval in a New York federal court, Citigroup argued that its own deal was better for U.S taxpayers and Wachovia shareholders. It said that it had exposed itself to "substantial economic risk" by stating its intent to rescue Wachovia after less than 72 hours of due diligence. Citigroup had obtained an exclusive agreement in order to protect itself.[63] Wachovia suffered a $23.9 billion loss in the third quarter.[64]