On Monday, Wachovia Corp. seemed like a penniless bride, forced into an arranged marriage. But on Friday, another suitor came along and quickly got into a fight with the first would-be groom.

Now the battle could end up in court. And Wachovia could be the subject of a bidding war. At stake is the nation's third-largest bank, a giant brought low by the mortgage crisis.

The suitors are:

• Citigroup, which announced a deal on Monday to buy most of Wachovia for $2.1 billion, or about $1 per share, with support from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

• Wells Fargo, which announced a deal on Friday to buy Wachovia in its entirety for $15.1 billion, or $7 per share, with no government aid.

New York-based Citigroup responded by accusing Wachovia of reneging on a promise not to do a deal with anyone else and accusing San Francisco-based Wells Fargo of illegally interfering with a legal agreement. Observers could only speculate on what would happen next.

Whatever the legal issues, the Citigroup deal was subject to approval by Wachovia shareholders, who seem unlikely to accept $1 per share when a $7 offer is on the table.

Miami-based banking consultant Ken Thomas predicted a legal battle and a bidding war. Congress also could get involved, he added.

''Seven dollars is much more in line with what they are worth,'' Thomas said. ``If it got into a bidding war, it could go as high as 10.''

The deal is important to both suitors because Wachovia is the largest remaining bank available for sale. What's more, Wachovia has a large network of branches in states -- notably Florida -- where neither suitor is now strong.

Florida is Wachovia's largest market, with more than 700 branches and $60 billion in deposits statewide. Of those, roughly 140 branches and $17 billion in deposits are in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to FDIC statistics from last year.

''It's a helluva lot cheaper to buy a bank than to expand, as they say, de novo, where you just open up new branches and you have to compete,'' said Dave Humphrey, a finance professor at Florida State University.

Florida has the fourth-largest population of the 50 states. But on top of that, the state's population skews older, and older residents have larger bank deposits. That makes the Sunshine State a tempting prize for bankers, said University of Florida finance professor Mark Flannery.

What's more, recent federal bailout deals have convinced many in the financial services industry that there are advantages in bigness.

''It's become increasingly clear that being big entitles these firms to special treatment by the government,'' Flannery said.

Depending on how you count, either merger could claim to create the nation's largest bank in some criteria.

All of which makes Charlotte-based Wachovia look a lot more attractive than it did on Monday.

''Although it is still too early to tell, this could presage a significant shift in market sentiment toward the value of companies such as Wachovia, and may suggest that there has been an overreaction in the downdraft that we saw in the past few weeks,'' Anant Sundaram, professor of finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. ``It is a huge shot in the arm for market confidence. It is also a signal that market forces are capable of resolving some aspects of the crisis without undue Congressional, and hence, taxpayer, intervention.''

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