It was Friday, September 26, and Wachovia Chairman and CEO Bob Steel faced a cold, hard fact: if he didn’t find a buyer by Monday, his bank would have to file for bankruptcy protection. Burdened by credit card and loan defaults, Charlotte, N.C.–based Wachovia had seen its stock plummet. Without a sale, Wachovia almost certainly would join Lehman Brothers and Washington Mutual in the trash heap of once-storied financial institutions felled by the credit crisis. Working furiously through the weekend,Steel and his team made inroads with San Francisco–based Wells Fargo, a mega-bank that had emerged from the subprime mortgage mess virtually unscathed. Wells Fargo reportedly was prepared to offer more than $20 billion for Wachovia. Even better, Wells Fargo wasn’t asking for the government assistance that rival Citigroup was insisting on for a sale.