Wachovia hires Goldman Sachs over loan issues

The Philadelphia region's largest bank, Wachovia Corp., said yesterday that it had hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to advise the nation's fourth-largest bank on its troubled loan portfolio. Wachovia spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown confirmed that Goldman Sachs had been hired and "is performing analytics on our loan portfolio to evaluate various alternatives.

We're not commenting beyond that." All U.S. banks and brokerages are scrambling to raise cash and grappling with the housing and economic downturn. Analysts say all regional banks are feeling the crunch of loan losses and rising delinquencies. The move of hiring Goldman Sachs comes less than three weeks after the board ousted chief executive officer G. Kennedy Thompson. At the time, nonexecutive chairman and interim CEO Lanty Smith said that "no single precipitating event" led to requesting that Thompson retire, but that "a series of previously disclosed disappointments and setbacks" has negatively affected the Charlotte, N.C., company. Wachovia ...