{"id":4336,"date":"2011-10-03T18:41:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-03T23:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=4336"},"modified":"2011-10-03T23:36:37","modified_gmt":"2011-10-04T04:36:37","slug":"wachovia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/columbiaclosings.com\/wordpress\/?p=4336","title":{"rendered":"Wachovia, Everywhere: September 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The weekend of September 17 2011, all of Columbia's Wachovia<\/i> locations unveiled their new Wells Fargo<\/i> signs and the transition which had been forgone since the 2008 merger\/rescue was complete.<\/p>\n

In reading the Wikipedia entry for Wachovia<\/a>, I learned a number of things including the fact that \"Wachovia\" is an old German\/Moravian term for the area of North Carolina including Winston-Salem and that Wachovia, like many banks, has a complicated history.<\/p>\n

The short version is that the entity that became known as Wachovia<\/i> started in the Winston-Salem area, eventually bought First Atlanta<\/i> and became a regional power with headquaters in both Atlanta and Winston-Salem.<\/p>\n

In 2001 Wachovia<\/i> merged with First Union<\/i>, a bank with its own complicated history. Although technically First Union<\/i> was the entity which survived, the new company took the Wachovia<\/i> name and went on an acquisitions spree.<\/p>\n

One of these acquisitions was the mortgage firm Golden West<\/i> which proved to be a poison pill, cratering within Wachovia<\/i> as the housing bubble burst. This put Wachovia<\/i> in the position of needing more cash just exactly at the time Washington Mutual<\/i> failed and dried up all investment cash for banks. I'm not entirely sure I understand what happened next, but the government intervened and tied Wachovia<\/i> up with Citigroup<\/i>, a pairing that somehow unravelled when Wells Fargo<\/i> entered the picture and acquired Wachovia<\/i> instead.<\/p>\n

Or in the end, it could simply be that Wachovia<\/i> had the bad fortune never to be written into a beloved Broadway show...<\/p>\n