Banking: Crocker Boards the Stagecoach

Crocker Boards the Stagecoach

Founded soon after the Gold Rush of 1849, Wells Fargo is California's oldest bank. Last week the San Francisco company, which still uses its familiar stagecoach symbol, scooped up some glittering gold dust when it agreed to pay Britain's Midland Bank $1.08 billion for Crocker National, another San Francisco bank. If the deal goes through, the combination of Wells Fargo (1985 assets: $29.4 billion) and Crocker will be the largest banking merger in U.S. history. The agreement ended six months of secret negotiations between Wells Fargo and Midland executives. No one at Crocker had known that a deal was in the...

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