Victor Cook

Stress Test Results: AQ Chances vs. SCAP Buffers

Sanitychecker,

Yes, of course I remember your comment. Unfortunately, I did not follow up on ways to combine Wachovia’s pre-merger numbers with Wells Fargo’s. I wish I had done as you suggested.

It would have been a simple thing to combine the two if WB were included in my 32 quarter analysis of the 92 public US bank and thrift holding companies with the most deposits. But it wasn’t. That’s because WB was not on the list I got from American Banker. Apparently their data supplier (SNL) removed WB since the merger had gone through when they compiled the list on March 11, 2009. So, rather than redo the analysis I let it ride.

I just checked WB’s 9/30/08 financials. At that time its price had dropped to around $3.50 destroying its market cap, while the merger would have doubled WFC revenues. The combination would have pushed Wells Fargo’s AQ score back far below zero. Then I wouldn’t have been nailed by Connell in my interview! Sigh…

~V