Wachovia approached potential buyers, including Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Spain’s Banco Santander, on Friday after a 27 per cent plunge in its shares deepened fears over the future of the sixth-largest US bank.

The move came after JPMorgan Chase’s takeover of most of Washington Mutual, the collapsed lender that became the US’s biggest bank failure on Thursday, and did little to soothe investor worries over future casualties of the financial crisis.