Wells Fargo & Co will announce an expansion in its securities business, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website.
Wells Fargo Securities group will debt and equity underwriting, mergers and acquisitions, loan syndications, debt and equity sales and trading, municipal securities and some derivatives.
The business, to be called Wells Fargo Securities, will offer merger advice, stock and bond underwriting, loan syndications and fixed-income trading.
The fourth-largest U.S. bank Wells Fargo bought Wachovia at the end of 2008 for $12.5 billion.
“Clearly one of the great benefits of the Wachovia merger was the strong investment banking and capital markets platform that we gained,” John Stumpf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo, said in a statement. “We plan to build on those strengths to grow and invest in the business.”
It will be divided into two business lines:
Investment banking and capital markets- co-led by Rob Engel and Jonathan Weiss
Securities and investment group- headed up by John Shrewsberry
Shedding the Wachovia name, renaming its securities unit Wells Fargo Securities from Wachovia Securities.
Two months earlier, the bank renamed its brokerage unit, which had also been known as Wachovia Securities, as Wells Fargo Advisors.
Higher profits from the securities business could help Wells Fargo bolster equity, after it wrote off $37.2 billion of Wachovia’s loan book when it acquired that Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender for $12.5 billion at year end.
