Wells Fargo to pay back Tarp money from profits
WALL Street bank Wells Fargo said yesterday that it would soon be able to repay the $25bn (£15.4bn) in Troubled Asset Relief Programme (Tarp) funding it took from the US government without resorting to a share offering.
The bank, America’s fourth largest with $1.25 trillion in assets, said it would repay the bailout money from its internal funds and would not need to go cap in hand to investors.
President and chief executive John Stumpf said the bank was seeing the number of problem loans bottoming out and added that revenues from mortgage servicing were on the up, allowing the bank to fund the repayment from earnings.
Wells Fargo is the latest bank to express an interest in repaying Tarp as soon as possible, with Bank of America believed to have offered to repay $20bn of its $45bn in funding this week.