Wells Fargo & Co will announce an expansion in its securities business, the Wall Street Journal reported on its website.

The bank plans to grow and invest in the securities business that it largely inherited from Wachovia, the paper quoted Wells Fargo Chief Executive John Stumpf as saying in a statement to be released on Monday.

The business, to be called Wells Fargo Securities, will offer merger advice, stock and bond underwriting, loan syndications and fixed-income trading, according to the paper.

Wells Fargo could not be immediately reached for comment by Reuters.

Wells Fargo bought Wachovia at the end of 2008 for $12.5 billion.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

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