Wells Fargo

Type: Public (NYSE: WFC)
Founded: New York, New York, USA (March 18, 1852)
Headquarters: 420 Montgomery, San Francisco, California, USA
Key people: Richard Kovacevich, Chairman, John Stumpf, President and CEO
Industry: Banking
Products: Checking accounts, Savings accounts, Insurance, Investments, Mortgages, Consumer finance
Website: www.wellsfargo.com

General Information

Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified financial services company in the United States with consumer finance subsidiaries doing business in Canada and Puerto Rico.

Headquartered in San Francisco, California (its bank, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., is legally chartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota), Wells Fargo is a result of an acquisition of California-based Wells Fargo & Co. by Minneapolis-based Norwest Corporation in 1998. The new company chose to keep the name Wells Fargo, to capitalize on the 150-year history of the nationally-recognized Wells Fargo name and its trademark stagecoach (the company's slogan, 'The Next Stage,' is a play on the company's wagons-west motif). After the merger, the company maintained its headquarters in San Francisco.

As of December 31, 2006, Wells Fargo has 6,062 retail branches, over 23 million customers, and 160,000 employees.

Lines of Business

Wells Fargo offers a range of financial services, claiming in one investor presentation to operate more than 80 divisions. In addition, the company claims to be one of the most 'integrated' of financial services companies. For example, Wells Fargo stock brokers sit in retail branches.[citation needed]

Wells Fargo delineates three different business segments when reporting results: Retail Banking, Wholesale Banking, and Consumer Finance. This is unlike many other financial services companies which provide more detail about particular businesses or product lines.