Wells Fargo (WFC) has emerged as the leading bidder over Citigroup (C) to acquire Wachovia (WB) as of late Sunday night, according to the New York Times. Despite finalizing plans for the $700B bailout plan for bad debts, the Fed is unwilling to guarantee any of Wachovia's assets as it did with JP Morgan's (JPM) take-under of Bear Stearns. The crisis for Wachovia intensified on Friday with the shares losing over 25% of their value on the failure of WaMu and $31B write-down by JP Morgan on bad loans from the troubled thrift. With global markets trading down this morning and futures in the U.S. pointing to a lower open, pressure is mounting for a sale of Wachovia given that the stock lost over one-fourth of its market value on Friday. It remains to be seen whether Wachovia is sold in whole or broken up to separate the bad debts and if the selling price will only be "a few dollars" as reported by the Times on Sunday.
