San Francisco, October 8, 2010 – Wells Fargo Securities, part of Wells Fargo & Company, and the World Bank Treasury today announced a program designed to provide new investment opportunities in World Bank notes for U.S. retail investors. Under the program, Wells Fargo Securities acts as a dealer of World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD) notes issued under its Global Debt Issuance Facility and offers those notes to its customers through Wells Fargo Advisors and Wells Fargo Investments, Wells Fargo’s retail brokerage businesses. The project was launched in the second quarter of 2010 and has already raised over $120 million to fund the World Bank. The World Bank works to improve standards of living worldwide, working with its member countries in areas such as health and education, environmental protection, sustainable agriculture and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Kenneth Lay, Vice President and Treasurer of the World Bank, noted: “We’re pleased to be working with Wells Fargo to reach more investors in the United States, while at the same time financing activities that help achieve major, sustainable improvements in standards of living worldwide. An added bonus is making the World Bank and its mission more visible in the United States.”
“As a result of this program, we can provide our customers with more investment opportunities while also raising the funding for the World Bank that it uses to finance sustainable projects throughout the world,” said Dave Hoyt, head of Wells Fargo Wholesale Banking.
Information for investors on World Bank bonds and its Global Debt Issuance Facility is available on the World Bank Treasury website: www.worldbank.org/debtsecurities. Additional information about the World Bank, its purpose and its activities is available at www.worldbank.org.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.2 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 10,000 banking stores, 12,000 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com and wachovia.com), and other distribution channels across North America and internationally. With more than 278,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in America. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked #19 on Fortune’s 2009 rankings of America’s largest corporations.
Wells Fargo Securities is the trade name for certain capital markets and investment banking services of Wells Fargo & Company and its subsidiaries, including Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, member FINRA and SIPC, and Wells Fargo Bank, National Association.
About the World Bank
The World Bank (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, IBRD), rated Aaa/AAA (Moody’s/S&P), is an international organization created in 1944. It operates as a global development cooperative owned by 187 nations. It provides its members with financing, expertise and coordination services so they can achieve equitable and sustainable economic growth in their national economies and find effective solutions to pressing regional and global economic and environmental problems. The overriding goal is to achieve major, sustainable improvements in standards of living worldwide. It has been issuing bonds in the international capital markets for over 60 years to fund its activities.
