NORWICH – Chaos on Wall Street hit a little closer to home Monday when it was announced that Citigroup Inc. would purchase Wachovia in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). This buy-out will not affect clients of the Norwich Investment Group of Wachovia Securities, assured local Wachovia representative Dominic Shea.

“We are fully operational and equipped to conduct business in the usual way,” reported Shea, a financial consultant.

For the sum of $2.1 billion, Citigroup will be acquiring Wachovia’s general banking subsidiary which consists of 3,300 branches in 21 states. It will also be assuming $312 billion of bad debt in the form of toxic, high-risk loans.

The terms of a loss-sharing agreement between Citigroup and the FDIC will limit Citigroup absorbed losses on the arrangement to $42 billion. The FDIC will bear the risk for the remainder.

Wachovia’s brokerage and asset management arms were not included in the multi-billion dollar deal. Wachovia Securities, AG Edwards and Evergreen Investments will continue to operate as before, said Shea, although a plan to spin them off as a separate entity as early as December is in the works.