Wachovia Banks announced a $23.9 billion loss today. Citibank had previously agrees to buy Wachovia as part of a deal where the government agreed to back some problem loans. Wells Fargo came along an offered to pay more and forgo government guarantees. Wachovia predicted another $26.1 billion loss in 2009.

Wells Fargo obviously wasn’t shocked, the expect to absorb $74 billion in losses and John Stumpf, Wells Fargo’s chief executive, said:

Wachovia’s third-quarter results were very much in line with our expectations