Question: what is the history of wells fargo bank

title: History of Wells Fargo
text: The financial performance of Wells Fargo , as well as its stock price , suffered from this botched merger , leaving the bank vulnerable to being taken over itself as banking consolidation continued unabated . This time , Wells Fargo entered into a friendly merger agreement with Norwest Corporation of Minneapolis , which was announced in June 1998 . The deal was completed in November of that year and was valued at $31.7 billion . Although Norwest was the nominal survivor , the merged company retained the Wells Fargo name because of the latter 's greater public recognition and the former 's regional connotations . The merged company remained based in San Francisco based on the bank 's $54 billion in deposits in California versus $13 billion in Minnesota . The head of Wells Fargo , Paul Hazen , was named chairman of the new company , while the head of Norwest , Richard Kovacevich , became president and CEO . However , Wells Fargo retains Norwest 's pre-1998 stock price history , and all SEC filings before 1998 are listed under Norwest , not Wells Fargo .