Talk may start up again next week about a possible sale of Evergreen Investments. Following the failure of WaMu on Thursday, talk that Evergreen's parent, Wachovia, was in distress as well started up again.

MarketWatch reports that credit-default swap spreads on Wachovia increased to 827.2 basis points. This means that investors are now willing to pay much more for protection against a default by the bank. The spread is also similar to the one that WaMu was trading at right before it failed.

Credit Derivatives Research, which tracks the spreads via its Counter-Party Risk Index, said in a statement that "Wachovia is now trading at distressed levels, raising the specter of another major U.S. bank failure in the near future."

Talk about a possible sale of Evergreen started in the early summer when it became apparent that parent Wachovia would need to raise capital to offset writedowns. (see MFWire July 2, 2008). Such talk reached a fever pitch when the bank posted an $8.9 billion loss in the second quarter but fizzled when all eyes turned to Lehman and its troubles.

Now Wachovia is the last of the banks about which there have been rumors of capital issues still standing and Wall Street is betting it won't last long.  

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