Wachovia deal a "body blow" to Charlotte: McColl

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc's deal to buy Wachovia Corp's banking operations is "very much a body blow" to Charlotte, North Carolina, retired Bank of America Corp chief Hugh McColl Jr, told the Charlotte Observer.

"Wachovia has been very important and very generous in all their work around education, the arts, everything you can think of," McColl was quoted by the paper as saying.

Together, Bank of America and Wachovia, the sixth-largest U.S. banking group ranked by assets, employ 36,000 people in the Charlotte area. Indirectly, they support hundreds of local businesses and thousands of other jobs.

McColl told the paper that not all Wachovia jobs were disappearing from the city.

"It is very very bad and disappointing, but we should not decide that there won't be anybody here because there will be," McColl was quoted by the paper as saying.

"It's a great city in which to do business," he told the paper.

(Reporting by Ajay Kamalakaran in Bangalore)