It would be a good thing if the Wells Fargo wagon comes down the street for Wachovia.

Wells Fargo & Company is trumping Citigroup’s offer to buy the banking operations of Charlotte-based Wachovia Corporation.

Citigroup had offered $2.2 billion or about a buck a share. San Francisco-based Wells Fargo will do the deal with a stock swap for all of Wachovia. Shareholders would get about $7/share.

Citi may counter, but the deal for Wells Fargo looks good. One reason is that it will not involve any federal bailout money.

Once considered a solid, conservative bank that reflected the values of its common-sense Moravian ancestors in Piedmont North Carolina, Wachovia starting getting into trouble about a decade ago.

First Union, with a bad reputation for customer service, bought it and the merger was plagued with funny deals, such as proposed million dollar giveaways to top executives. The new Wachovia had other problems, such as a multi-million dollar fine from the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, alleged complicity in a telemarketing scheme that ripped off the elderly and, more recently, a Justice Department probe of alleged drug money laundering.

Wachovia has a long arm in Richmond with many retail banking outlets. The city had been home to Wachovia Securities employing more than 1,000 but the unit skedaddled to St. Louis after Wachovia bought investment advisor A.G. Edwards for $6.7 billion.

A later buy of Golden West Financial for $25.5 billion helped seal Wachovia’s doom. The deal stuck Wachovia with lots of non-performing mortgage-related securities. The bank has been reeling ever since.

One impact of Wachovia’s problems was that it has frozen in part withdrawals of funds that colleges and universities use. It is trustee of the $9.3 billion Short Term Fund by Commonfund. The University of Richmond is one school affected by the cutoff.

Maybe things will get improve with better management from Wells Fargo.