Wells Fargo & Company

WFC

Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California, with managerial offices throughout the United States and overseas. It is the world's fourth-largest bank by market capitalization and the fourth largest bank in the US by total assets. Wells Fargo is ranked number 26 on the 2018 Fortune 500 rankings of the largest US corporations by total revenue.In July 2015, Wells Fargo became the world's largest bank by market capitalization, edging past ICBC, before slipping behind JPMorgan Chase in September 2016, in the wake of a scandal involving the creation of over 2 million fake bank accounts and illegal manipulation of other accounts by Wells Fargo employees. Wells Fargo fell behind Bank of America to third by bank deposits in 2017 and behind Citigroup to fourth by total assets in 2018. Wells Fargo is incorporated in Delaware.The firm's primary operating subsidiary is national bank Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., which designates its main office as Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Wells Fargo in its present form is a result of a merger between San Francisco–based Wells Fargo & Company and Minneapolis-based Norwest Corporation in 1998 and the subsequent 2008 acquisition of Charlotte-based Wachovia. Following the mergers, the company transferred its headquarters to Wells Fargo's headquarters in San Francisco and merged its operating subsidiary with Wells Fargo's operating subsidiary in Sioux Falls. Along with JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup, Wells Fargo is one of the "Big Four Banks" of the United States. As of June 2018, it had 8,050 branches and 13,000 ATMs. In 2018 the company had operations in 35 countries with over 70 million customers globally.In February 2014, Wells Fargo was named the world's most valuable bank brand for the second consecutive year in The Banker and Brand Finance study of the top 500 banking brands.

Wells Fargo & Company has been a target of short sellers for a while. The current short interest of 1.12% is roughly at the average of the last 12 months (1.07%).