<div><p>US banking giant Wells Fargo reported strong profits for 2009 following its integration of smaller rival Wachovia and repayment of a 25-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout.</p><p>Wells Fargo posted net income of 2.82 billion dollars in the fourth quarter on record revenue of 22.7 billion dollars, up an annualized 4.0 percent from the third quarter.</p><p>For the full year, Wells Fargo said it had net profit of 7.99 billion dollars on record revenue of 88.7 billion dollars.</p><p>The financial results partly reflected the California-based bank's takeover of Wachovia on December 31, 2008, making Wells Fargo the fourth-largest bank by assets in the United States. The bank said it had 1.2 trillion dollars in assets at the end of 2009.</p><p>For shareholders, fourth-quarter income was 394 million dollars, mainly due to the aid repayment and dividends under the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).</p><p>Earnings per share of eight cents in the fourth quarter surprised most analysts, who on average had forecast a net loss of one cent.</p><p>The bank announced in December it had repaid the US Treasury's 25 billion dollars in preferred shares purchased under the TARP rescue and paid a dividend of 131.9 million dollars.</p><p>The bank said that average checking and savings deposits rose to 661 billion dollars in the fourth quarter, a 20 percent increase from the prior quarter.</p><p>The final three months of the year showed "continued signs of a positive turn in credit quality" and almost all major loan categories had relatively flat or declining losses, with the exception of commercial real estate, the bank said.</p><p>"For the fourth quarter of 2009 and for the full year, we delivered significant value for our customers, communities, shareholders and country," said John Stumpf, chairman and chief executive of Wells Fargo.</p><p>Stumpf said the merger with Wachovia, which essentially doubled the size of Wells Fargo, "has already generated tremendous synergies."</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67356058&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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