Citi, Wachovia Watch: Truce Extended Until Friday

[WSJ_law_blog]

This just in: The AP is reporting that a litigation freeze among Citigroup, Wachovia and Wells Fargo has been extended for about two more days, until Friday morning at 8 a.m. The truce was first put into place on Monday, with a supposed expiration of Wednesday at noon, to give the parties a bit of time to reach a settlement over the bidding war for Wachovia.

Citigroup and Wells Fargo are locked in a hard-fought battle over Wachovia. Last week, Wachovia agreed to a tentative $2.2 billion deal with Citigroup for Wachovia’s banking operations. Later in the week, Wells Fargo jumped into the bidding, and reached agreement with Wachovia whereby Wachovia would be sold in its entirety (the banking operations, as well as its asset-management and brokerage arms) to Wells Fargo for $15.1 billion. A big crazy web of litigation was launched over the weekend.

So what’s been going on since Monday? The WSJ reported this morning that a “quick resolution appeared increasingly unlikely,” and that Citi had reached out to other parties to join its bid. The talks, which are apparently continuing, are largely turning on ways to split up Wachovia’s assets between the two parties.

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