Earlier this week, Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) CEO John Stumpf told Bloomberg Television that the San Francisco lender is set on repaying the government's $25 billion TARP investment soon withoutresorting to an extra share offering. That reminds me of General Electric (NYSE: GE) CEO Jeff Immelt's assurances in January that GE was committed to maintaining both its dividend and its triple-A credit rating (GE kept neither). Is Mr. Stumpf guilty of wanting to return his Treasury cake and eat it, too?

Laggard or leader?
The better-run institutionsthat received the first round of TARP investments -- including JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM), Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS), and US Bancorp (NYSE: USB) -- have all repaid the government's funds by now. By that criteria, Wells Fargo is lumped in with two lower-qualitypeers Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) and Citigroup (NYSE: C). Nonetheless, Wells still trades at the upper end of sector valuations -- at least on the basis of price-to-book value and price-to-tangible book value:

Price / Book Value

Price / Tangible Book Value

P/E (Current Fiscal Year + 2)

US Bancorp (NYSE: USB)

1.74

3.51

10.1

Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)

1.46

4.34

8.55

JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)

1.09

2.04

8.61

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) Continued...