(CNN) -- Wells Fargo Co. and Norwest Corp. are close to a merger that would create one of the largest banks in the western United States with more than $180 billion in assets, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported Monday. The deal is valued at more than $30 billion.

The board of Wells met to discuss the merger Sunday, and an announcement is expected as early as Sunday, the Journal said.

As part of the merger, Norwest's chief executive, Richard Kovacevich, would run the combined company as chief executive while Wells' chief executive, Paul Hazen, will relinquish that post, the Times reported.

The new bank would be based in San Francisco and retain the Wells Fargo name -- one of the oldest and best-known names in banking. It will rank as the sixth-largest bank in the United States if all other bank mergers announced this year are completed, the Times said.

A transaction between the two companies -- currently the nation's 10th and 11th largest banks -- would be valued at close to Wells' current stock-market value of $31.5 billion, the Journal reported. In addition, the banking giant would have roughly $181 billion in assets and nearly 2,900 branches in 21 states in the West and Midwest, excluding Norwest's national consumer-finance business.

The transaction would continue the trend of megamergers in the banking industry, including the recent mergers of NationsBank Corp. and BankAmerica Corp, Citicorp and Travelers Group, and First Chicago Corp. and Banc One Corp.

Norwest, a Minneapolis-based bank with 57,000 employees in 16 states, has been one of the industry's top-performing banks this decade.

Wells Fargo widely is viewed as the prize candidate left in the rapidly consolidating banking industry. It is the last major franchise left in the California market and the second-largest holder of customer deposits in that state, the Journal reported.

However, Wells has lagged behind the industry in recent years, with its performance stumbling ever since a hostile, $11.3 billion bid for First Interstate in 1996. Since then, the company has closed hundreds of branches and slashed 7,000 jobs with about 5,000 angry employees leaving on their own.

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