It appears Wachovia Corp. was playing "Let’s Make a Deal" with firms other than Citigroup when it was looking for a lifeline.

Wachovia said Friday it agreed to be acquired by Wells Fargo & Co. in a $15.1 billion all-stock deal, after a previous plan for it to sell its banking operations to Citigroup.

The difference here is that the Wells Fargo deal will be done without government assistance. The Citigroup deal would have included the help of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

"Today’s announcement creates one of the strongest financial firms in the world," said Wachovia CEO Robert Steel. "This deal enables us to keep Wachovia intact and preserve the value of an integrated company, without government support."

Wachovia shareholders will receive 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo for every share of Charlotte, NC-based Wachovia stock they own, valuing Wachovia at about $7 per share. Wells Fargo anticipates incurring merger and integration charges of about $10 billion. The company intends to issue up to $20 billion in new Wells Fargo securities, primarily common stock, "to maintain its strong capital position."

The New York Times reports that stock futures were extending their gains on the news of the deal, in part, because no government money is being used. Futures had already been higher Friday following a sell-off a day earlier and ahead of the House vote on a bailout package.

Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 73 at the 10,630 level after being up 57 ahead of the announcement.

In other financial news today:

-U.S. employers cut payrolls at the steepest rate in five-and-a-half years during September, Reuters reports, slashing an unexpectedly large 159,000 nonfarm jobs as employment shrunk for a ninth straight month. The unemployment rate was unchanged from August at 6.1 percent. September’s job losses were more severe than predicted by Wall Street economists, who forecast 100,000 jobs would be cut.

-Consumer spending — what the nation has counted on for the past two decades during tough economic times — has been cut back in the midst of the current financial meltdown. Real spending has been flat or down since June, The Washington Post says. The cutbacks have been so severe that many economists are predicting that the slowing of consumer spending could effectively stall the engine of the American economy. Even "Help Wanted" signs are being taken down from storefronts.

-World markets, particularly those in Asia, fell Friday in the wake of another plunge on Wall Street amid doubts that Congress’s bank bailout plan will prevent a recession in the U.S. and a global economic slump, and discouraging economic data. Reuters says money markets remained largely frozen Friday as banks waited for word on the bailout. But central bank action succeeded in dragging overnight dollar funding costs to target.

-Latin American countries now fear that the economic tumult in the U.S. may affect them. The New York Times reports that despite strong economic growth this decade, there is a growing nervousness that Latin America cannot escape the globalized connections in the financial sector that run through the United States.