Article: Wachovia Agrees to Buy Jefferson Bankshares of Va.

Wachovia Corp., a North Carolina banking powerhouse, announced its entry into Virginia yesterday with its $542 million acquisition of Jefferson Bankshares Inc. of Charlottesville.

Banking experts predicted that Wachovia's takeover of Jefferson is the beginning of a push to grab a significant share of the banking market in Virginia and ultimately the Washington metro region, where it would compete with North Carolina rivals NationsBank Corp. and First Union Corp. The company has long expressed a desire to expand into Virginia.

"Wachovia didn't come into the state of Virginia just to buy a $2 billion bank," said Vernon Plack, a bank analyst at Scott & Stringfellow Financial Inc. in ...

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