War over Wachovia: Wells Fargo pays Citi $100M in settlement

Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to pay Citigroup Inc. $100 million to settle claims that the San Francisco-based bank improperly won bidding to acquire Wachovia Corp. during the financial crisis. “We are glad to put this matter behind us, and we look forward to our two institutions working together constructively in the future,” Wells Fargo said today in a joint statement with New York-based Citigroup. Wells Fargo trumped Citigroup’s $2.16 billion bid for Wachovia’s banking operations in 2008, by paying $12.7 billion for the Charlotte, North Carolina-based lender in a deal that required no guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The final deal deprived Citigroup of a chance to bolster its business, which later required a $45 billion government bailout. The takeover battle spawned lawsuits among the companies. The settlement resolves “all claims related to this dispute,” the banks said. Bloomberg