Wells Fargo eyes TARP repay; no time frame-report

NEW YORK, June 18 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N) Chief Executive John Stumpf said in a newspaper interview he would like the bank to repay the $25 billion it took from the Troubled Asset Relief Program as soon as practical, but he gave no time frame.

"It was meant to be temporary," Stumpf told the Charlotte Observer, referring to the TARP money. "We want it to be temporary. We will pay it back as soon as practical."

The fourth-largest U.S. bank took the money in part to absorb Wachovia Corp, which it acquired on Dec. 31. Regulators ordered the San Francisco-based bank to raise another $13.7 billion after conducting a "stress test" of the bank's ability to weather a deep recession.

"We have not yet applied to pay it back," Stumpf said in the interview, reported on the newspaper's website. "We will be talking with the (Federal Reserve). The first thing we did was get through the stress test. The stress test said that we had enough capital. The Fed said Wells should have more common capital, so a different composition of capital."

On Wednesday, 10 large U.S. banks, including larger Wells Fargo rival JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), said they repaid more than $68 billion to TARP. Wells Fargo's other larger rivals, Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N), took $45 billion each from TARP and have not repaid those sums.

Separately, Stumpf said the $25 billion of subprime loans on the bank's balance sheet and made at its Wells Fargo Financial unit are "performing very, very well -- well above the industry average because they are fully underwritten, there's no broker involved, full appraisals, full income verification."

He declined to discuss second-quarter performance and said he did not know how many jobs will be cut at Wells Fargo, which doubled in size when it bought Wachovia. The bank has said it expects $5 billion of savings from the merger.

The bank's shares closed Wednesday at $23.09. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; editing by John Wallace)