- What if a Recovery Is All in Your Head?
- A Taxpayer's Must Read: The Fed Waltz With AIG
- Health Care Bill Clears First Senate Hurdle
- Wall Street Jobs Slow to Return Despite Record Profits
- Thanksgiving Week Stuffed With Economic News
- Investors to Goldman: Be Less Greedy
- Real Estate Agents See Return of Foreign Buyers
- 10 Tips to Get Out of Debt
- 'New Moon' Takes Record $72.7M Box Office Bite
- How Stock Investors Can Play Holiday Travel
- Time Lapse World Series Is A Great Play
- Hirschhorn: Greed...or Fear
- My Top 10 Tech Toys for the Holidays
- iPhone a Better Gaming Platform Than Android?
- May Day For Dendreon
- 100% Mortgage Financing From USDA
- Holiday Tipping: Who And How Much
- Deep Discounts Should Make It a Very Tech-y Holiday
Text Size 
Washington Mutual, the U.S. savings and loan slammed by slumping mortgage markets, has held "very preliminary" merger talks with JPMorgan Chase, CNBC has learned.
 |
CNBC.com |
JP Morgan also may be interested in two other regional banks, Suntrust Banks [STI
Loading...
()
] and PNC Financial Services [PNC
Loading...
()
], and is likely to make an acquisition sometime this year.
News of the talks comes as Bank of America [BAC
Loading...
()
] announced it will acquire another troubled mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial [CFC
Loading...
()
], in a $4 billion transaction.
And as Bank of America did with Countrywide, JP Morgan Chase might first invest money in Wamu before any full-scale buyout.
Shares of Washington Mutual [WM Loading... ()] jumped sharply following the CNBC report.
___________________________________________
WaMu Investors' Edge:
Last month, Washington Mutual said it would slash its dividend, cut more than 3,000 jobs and raise up to $2.5 billion in fresh capital.
The Seattle-based bank also said it expected to report a net loss in the fourth quarter after recording non-cash write-downs of home loans segment goodwill. Wamu said the write-down will not hurt its key capital ratios or liquidity.
Meanwhile, SunTrust said late last month that will give a $1.4 billion boost to two of its money market funds to protect investors from possible losses. The regional banking company also said that its earnings for the fourth quarter will be hurt by material deterioration in market valuations, the outlook for consumer credit quality, Visa litigation and other items.
Reuters contributed to this report
Print
Email
- Technology can make or break a fortune in the world of alternative energy.
- Many people are facing the holidays with substantially smaller incomes. Here’s how some are adapting.
- Jim Cramer is a proponent of stocks that pay healthy dividends, and here are his top five dividend plays.
- From salt, to lip balm to envelopes, it turns out that bacon flavoring can sell almost anything.
- The homebuyer's tax credit jacked sales for a while, but 2010 is looking weak. Now what?
- CNBC’s technology reporter Jim Goldman guides you through the best gadgets to buy this holiday season.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes