Wells Fargo Picks Up Piece Of Banks Of Ireland, Stock Going To $30

Wells Fargo announced its decision to acquire Burdale Financial Holdings Limited (Burdale) along with an almost $1 billion loan portfolio of Burdale Capital Finance. [1] Burdale is a fully owned subsidiary of the Bank of Ireland.

This acquisition, which comes within a week of Wells Fargo�s announcement of the acquisition of EverKey Global Partners (see Wells Fargo to Acquire EverKey Global Partners) highlights the bank�s focus on expanding its operations through inorganic growth.

Burdale will strengthen Wells Fargo�s asset-based lending offerings for its U.S.-based customers in the U.K. as a part of Wells Fargo Capital Finance. The acquisition will notably put it in direct competition with RBS and Barclays � the biggest banks in U.K. over asset-based commercial lending.

We maintain a $30 price estimate for Wells Fargo�s stock, and attribute the 18% premium to the current market price to the pessimistic outlook for banking stocks in the wake of economic slowdown and deteriorating European debt crisis.

See our complete analysis of Wells Fargo here

Burdale provides comprehensive asset-based lending services through its operations in the U.K. and

land, Wells Fargo Press Releases, Dec 19 2011 [?]

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