Bank to buy First Community

Thursday, Sept. 2, 2004 | 11:06 a.m.

Wells Fargo & Co., the fourth-largest U.S. bank, said it agreed to pay $124 million in stock to buy First Community Capital Corp., a closely held Houston-based banking company with $553 million in assets.

"First Community has a superb reputation for commercial banking and other financial services," Glenn Godkin, regional president for Wells Fargo in Houston, said in a statement. "Our cultures are a great match."

Wells Fargo, based in San Francisco, Citigroup Inc. and other large U.S. commercial banks have been expanding in Texas and Florida to take advantage of those states' population growth and burgeoning Hispanic communities. Citigroup last month agreed to buy Bryan, Texas-based First American Bank, which has $3.5 billion in assets, for an undisclosed sum.

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