With the economy improving and a merger with Wachovia complete, the chairman of Wells Fargo & Co. has announced he will retire in early 2010.

Dick Kovacevich

Dick Kovacevich, 65, said he will step down as the company’s chairman and a director at the end of this year and retire soon after, although no specific date was given. Kovacevich has spent 23 years with Wells Fargo and agreed last year to continue in the role of chairman for an interim period to focus on challenges in the financial services industry and a Wells Fargo-Wachovia merger. He was named chairman in 2001.

On Dec. 31, 2008, Wells Fargo obtained Wachovia, with the combined business creating the world’s fourth largest insurance firm and the largest bank-owned insurance brokerage in the United States, according to company officials. Earlier this year, Wachovia Insurance Services officially adopted the Wells Fargo moniker nationwide.

Wells Fargo’s board of airectors echoed an announcement made late last year that Joe Stumpf, the company’s president and CEO, would succeed Kovacevich as chairman effective Jan. 1, 2010. Stumpf, 56, a 27-year veteran of the company, succeeded Kovacevich as CEO two years ago.

Phil Quigley, lead director for Wells Fargo’s board, said in a statement, “Tens of thousands of our team members have helped make Wells Fargo one of the world’s most admired companies but they couldn’t have done it without the bold, determined and visionary leadership of Dick Kovacevich.”

Quigley noted several accomplishments by Kovacevich, including creating and articulating the company’s “ground breaking vision – to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.” Kovacevich was also credited for the oversight of the acquisition of more than 300 financial institutions by Wells Fargo and advocating for new federal laws to increase competition and customer benefit in the industry.

During Kovacevich’s tenure with the company, Quigley said, the market value of Wells Fargo stock rose from $4 billion to more than $130 billion.

Quigley also praised Stumpf’s leadership in helping to engineer the Wachovia acquisition and keeping the merger integration “smoothly on schedule” this year.

Stumpf is “the best person in the country to be leading our company through the challenges and enormous opportunities ahead,” Kovacevich said of his successor.