April 11, 2000

These are tense times in the Utah banking world. Especially for employees of First Security Corporation. Yesterday, Wells Fargo announced it will buy First Security.

News Specialist Scott Light talked with people in both companies today and has this report.

Utah is the state that has the least overlap of Wells Fargo and First Security, so that's a positive. We also checked out the last major merger for Wells Fargo and found out how many people lost their jobs then.

Mergers, buy-outs, streamlining, consolidating-- those moves please stockholders, but they can be a public relations fiasco when people start losing jobs. That delicate task has come to Utah.

Some First Security workers will lose their jobs, but new owner Wells Fargo won't say how many. First Security sent out a memo telling employees not to talk to the media, but Rick Webster agreed to be interviewed.

Rick Webster/First Security Employee: "FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND THEY WOULD LIKE TO KEEP AS MANY PEOPLE EMPLOYED AND MAINTAIN THAT CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP THAT FIRST SECURITY HAS HAD AND TRIED TO MAINTAIN OVER THE YEARS."

For some sort of idea, we checked the last major merger for Wells Fargo-- the 1998 purchase of Minnesota based Norwest. That consolidation eliminated jobs for 3200 employees. However, 1800 found other jobs within the company.

Wells Fargo also moved its headquarters from Minnesota to San Francisco. That cost some jobs initially but today there are more than 13,000 Wells Fargo employees in Minnesota--five percent more than before the merger.

Keep this in mind too-- the Norwest deal was worth $30-billion. First Security is worth $3-billion.

We've also learned First Security will keep its local operations center here.

Some management positions in Utah will be eliminated but the major cuts will come in obvious overlapping areas-- New Mexico, Nevada and Idaho top that list.

Zion's Bank company statement says a Zions-First Security merger would have been worth more to First Security stockholders, provided better stock options for high-level management and better protection for Utah jobs.