Wells Fargo – worth a second look

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Investors and analysts love the new Wells Fargo that has resulted from Norwest’s takeover. Its CEO, former Norwest chief executive Dick Kovasevich, had previously eschewed any large deals, preferring to snap up small banks as the opportunity arose. “His style is to be conservative with his numbers, and aggressive on his selling,” says Sally Pope Davis, bank analyst with Goldman Sachs. It’s an approach that made him a nonentity in the consolidation market in the mid-1990s.