Wells Fargo & Co (NYSE: WFC) said that it will be combining its Wachovia and Wells Fargo brands in the state of California early next year. As a result, 122 Wachovia branches that are smaller and less prominently located than Wells Fargo branches will be shuttered.
These closures are set to occur next April as the San Francisco-based bank rebrands remaining Wachovia locations that are to remain open as Wells Fargo branches.
Wells Fargo took over Wachovia Corp in October of 2008 when Wells Fargo agreed to purchase the Charlotte, NC based company in a deal brokered by the FDIC. Although Citibank was first poised to takeover Wachovia, Wells Fargo was able to snatch up Wachovia by offering a better deal than Citibank’s offering, making it a national player.
After the downsizing, Wells Fargo will still have more than 1,000 branches in the state of California. Bank of America is the only other major financial institution that has near that many, with just under 1000 branches in the state.
Wells Fargo currently has 187 Wachovia offices in California. Of those branches, 101 will be closed according to a bank spokeswoman. The company will also be shutting down 21 Wells Fargo locations.
Analysts believe that the planned closures do not indicate a lack of commitment to the state, but rather a strategic move to remove redundancy. For example, there are some areas where Wachovia branches are within two or three blocks of Wells Fargo branches. It doesn’t take an investment analyst to determine that one of those branches could probably be done without.
Wells Fargo has stated that all affected employees will be given jobs at other Wells Fargo locations if they want them. The bank said that it needs “all the customer-facing people we can get” in a statement.
