Wells Fargo says it will raise $6 billion in stock offering

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Wells Fargo & Co. isn’t wasting any time addressing the results of its ‘stress test’: The San Francisco bank just announced plans for a $6-billion common stock offering.

The government will reveal the specifics of its big-bank stress tests at 2 p.m. PDT, but leaks in recent days have indicated that regulators want Wells to raise as much as $15 billion.

The $6-billion offering is expected to be priced Friday morning.

Wells’ shares fell $2.08, or 7.8%, to $24.76 in regular trading today, but the stock is up 26% since last Friday. The price slipped to $24.19 in after-hours trading.

Wells last sold new common stock in November, when it issued 468 million shares at $27 each, raising $12.6 billion.

The company now has about 4.3 billion shares outstanding, which gives Wells a market value of about $105 billion.

-- Tom Petruno