NEW YORK (Standard&Poor's) Dec. 15, 2009—Standard&Poor's Ratings Services said today that Wells Fargo&Co.'s (AA-/Negative/A-1+) agreement to repurchase its $25 billion in U.S. Treasury Troubled Asset Relief Program preferred stock partly with $12 billion of new shares is a moderate positive but will not affect the rating. The additional common equity capital will boost its Tier 1 common equity capital ratio to about 6.2%, from 5.2% at Sept. 30, 2009. Although this ratio is in the low end of the range of its peer banks, it does not give effect to the purchase accounting mark-downs taken on acquired Wachovia assets, which we believe substantially protect Wells from losses. We expect Wells to remain profitable through
