CHARLOTTE - First it was Citigroup. Then Wells Fargo. As two banks still standing amid a historic economic meltdown clash over the once-strong Wachovia, employees and city leaders are certain of only one thing: It's been a rough week on Tryon Street.

"It's been up and down. You can't sleep, because you don't know what's going to happen," said Karen Brown, 31, who works at a local Wachovia branch. "The economy is so bad that if you lose your job, what's next?"

For Wachovia, no one's quite sure.

A year ago, the bank's shares were trading for just under $60 as it and Tryon Street rival Bank of America kept making the billion-dollar deals that turned them from regional players into the anchors of the nation's retail banking industry.

This week, its share price crushed to less than $10 by the weight of a deal gone bad, Wachovia agreed to sell its banking operations for $2.1 billion to Citigroup. On Friday, Wachovia reversed course and said it had instead reached an agreement to be acquired by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo & Co. for $14.8 billion in stock.

Citi demanded that Wachovia abide by the terms of its earlier deal, which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. helped broker and wants to see move ahead. Not so fast, said Rep. Robin Hayes, a Concord Republican, who fired off a terse note to the FDIC on Friday with a warning to back down.

"My goal for Wachovia is to achieve the best outcome for employees, shareholders, customers and the community," Hayes said. "If the FDIC is going to push against that outcome, then we are ready to push them back -- and it's going to be a hard push."

Got all that? If you do, you're doing better than most.

"Nobody knows what the impact will be to Charlotte under either deal, and anybody who tells you they do is either lying or being recklessly speculative," said Bob Morgan, president of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. "This ballgame is in the third or fourth inning of what looks like is going to be a long game."

At stake are the thousands of high-paying banking jobs that helped Charlotte largely weather the downturn in the nation's housing market and overall economy. Wachovia has 120,000 employees nationwide, including 20,000 in Charlotte, where it and Bank of America have long been the leading corporate citizens.

"It's important for me to build relationships with both possible suitors, because I'm going to be trying to save as many jobs as possible for Charlotte," said Mayor Pat McCrory, who put his campaign for governor on hold Tuesday to met with Citigroup officials. "And who the end suitor is, is out of my control. It's going to be dependent upon the private sector to work that deal out."

But McCrory said he's confident the city will maintain a "very large presence in the financial sector, regardless of the choice that's made."

Outside the downtown office buildings, the talk centered Friday on the competing deals for Wachovia. The mood was a little more upbeat than on Monday. There were words of praise for Wells Fargo, which agreed to buy the entire company -- and not just Wachovia's retail bank, as had Citi.

"Clearly, for shareholders, it's a better deal. They're buying the entire Wachovia operations at a higher price. And some of those operations are going to stay in Charlotte," said Michael Walden, an economics professor at N.C. State University. "But mergers generally result in job losses because of overlap. How many is the big question."

WACHOVIA SUMMARY

COMPETING OFFERS: Wells Fargo would pay $14.8 billion in all-stock deal that does not hinge on government assistance. Wachovia shareholders would receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Wachovia stock they own, valuing Wachovia at about $7 per share. This is a nearly 80 percent premium over the stock's Thursday closing price of $3.91.

Citigroup's plan is to buy Wachovia's banking operations for $2.1 billion with the help of the FDIC. The bank would assume $53 billion worth of debt and absorb up to $42 billion of losses. The FDIC agreed to cover any remaining losses in exchange for $12 billion in Citigroup preferred stock and warrants.

EFFECT ON CHARLOTTE: If Wells wins, Charlotte will be the headquarters for the East Coast retail and commercial and corporate banking business. St. Louis will remain the headquarters of Wachovia Securities. The combined company will have total deposits of $713 billion and more than 6,500 locations.

If Citi wins, the retail bank will be in Charlotte and the investment bank in New York. The combined bank will have $600 billion in deposits and more than 4,300 branches.

THE BANKS' HEALTH: Citigroup has not turned a profit for three straight quarters. It lost a total of $17.4 billion in that period.

Wells Fargo has logged three straight quarters of profit declines, but the bank has been weathering the credit crisis much better than most of its competitors, in part because it had less exposure to the subprime mortgages.

THE STOCKS: Wachovia shares rose $2.30, or 58.8 percent, to close Friday at $6.21. Wells shares slipped 60 cents to $34.56, and Citigroup shares dropped $4.15, or 18.4 percent, to $18.35.

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