Wells Fargo and Company
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Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is an American multinational diversified financial services company with operations around the world. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the U.S. by assets and the largest bank by market capitalization.[4] Wells Fargo is the second largest bank in deposits, home mortgage servicing, and debit card. In 2011, Wells Fargo was the 23rd largest company in the United States.[2]
In 2007 it was the only bank in the United States to be rated AAA by S&P,[5] though its rating has since been lowered to AA-[6] in light of the financial crisis of 2007–2011. The firm's primary U.S. operating subsidiary is national bank Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., which designates its main office as Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
Wells Fargo in its present form is a result of an acquisition of California-based Wells Fargo & Company by Minneapolis-based Norwest Corporation in 1998 and the subsequent 2008 acquisition of Charlotte, NC-based Wachovia. Although Norwest was technically the surviving entity in the 1998 merger, the new company renamed itself Wells Fargo, capitalizing on the 150-year history of the nationally recognized name and its trademark stagecoach. Following the acquisition, the company transferred its headquarters to Wells Fargo's headquarters in San Francisco and merged its operating subsidiary with Wells Fargo's operating subsidiary in Sioux Falls.
In 2011, Wells Fargo had more than 9,000 retail branches (called stores by Wells Fargo), 12,231 automated teller machines, 270,000 employees (called team members) and over 70 million customers.
Wells Fargo is one of the Big Four banks of the United States with Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase
