Wells Fargo Surpasses JPMorgan as Top U.S. Bank by Market Value
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf
Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg
Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf.
Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/Bloomberg
Wells Fargo & Co., the San Francisco-based lender that doubled its size by buying Wachovia Corp. during the credit crisis, passed JPMorgan Chase & Co. to become the largest U.S. bank by stock-market value.
Wells Fargo’s market capitalization rose to $157.6 billion at today’s close of New York trading, surpassing JPMorgan’s $156.4 billion. Wells Fargo is ranked fourth by assets and deposits, while JPMorgan is second behind Bank of America Corp. and New York-based Citigroup Inc. is third.
Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, 57, has used acquisitions to fuel growth at Wells Fargo. The lender completed more than 55 purchases in the past five years, led by its $12.7 billion takeover of Wachovia in October 2008, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Wells Fargo had $622.4 billion in assets in the quarter before it purchased Wachovia. It held $1.2 trillion in assets at the end of September.
Wells Fargo rose 0.8 percent to $30.02 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have advanced 11 percent this year, compared with a loss of 4 percent at JPMorgan. The biggest stakeholder in Wells Fargo is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
On May 12, Wells Fargo passed Bank of America as the most valuable U.S. bank before the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company passed it the following week on May 18, according to Bloomberg data. New York-based JPMorgan has held the lead for most of the last two years, except for the five-month period between February and July of this year when it repeatedly traded places with Bank of America.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dakin Campbell in San Francisco at dcampbell27@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net
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