First Citizen Acquires SVB from FDIC in A Near $200 Billion Deal

US First Citizens Bank said Monday it has agreed to purchase all loans and deposits from collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), whose collapse triggered reverberating concern about the health of the banking sector across the globe.

First Citizens said in a statement that under the agreement, it will purchase “substantially all loans and certain other assets, and assume all customer deposits and certain other liabilities of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank.”

“The transaction is structured as a whole bank purchase with loss share coverage,” it added.

SVB collapsed earlier this month, trapping depositors’ fund and prompting the intervention of federal regulators. Authorities had moved in to protect depositors, announcing that all of the lender’s customers will be granted access to the entirety of their funds.

“Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer,” The U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said then in a joint statement.

Silicon Valley Bank has served as a key lender to tech companies for decades, beginning from the 1980s. But run into trouble after selling part of its portfolio at a $1.8 billion loss and did not succeed in raising more capital. Its failure was the biggest in the US bank industry history since 2008. SVB was the country’s 16th-largest bank before its collapse.

SVB Financial, Silicon Valley Bank’s former parent company, filed for bankruptcy on March 17.

Regulators’ intervention cut across to the UK. HSBC reached an agreement to buy SVB UK for $1, securing about $8.1 billion of deposits.

First Citizens will take over Silicon Valley Bridge Bank, which was created from SVB by regulators following its collapse, from Monday. It said the 17 former branches of SVB will open on Monday in California and Massachusetts as “Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank.” Its employees will automatically become employees of First Citizens.

“Admittedly, there has been a strong amount of runoff from the legacy Silicon Valley Bank this quarter. However, it is our intent to embrace the talents of our legacy SVB employees, embrace their business capabilities and then reiterate to their clients that First Citizens has an unwavering focus on holistic client relationships,” Craig Nix, the chief financial officer of First Citizens, said on a call with investors on Monday.

Also, the FDIC, which has been looking for a buyer for the bank, either in part or as whole, said Sunday the transaction covers $119 billion in deposits and $72 billion in assets, and depositors of SVB will automatically become depositors of First Citizens Bank. The regulator added that deposits will continue to be insured.

As part of the deal, the bank regulator will receive rights linked to the stock of First Citizens, which is said to be worth about $500 million, per the Times. It estimated that the cost of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure to the government’s deposit insurance fund would be around $20 billion.

First Citizens Bancshares is acquiring much of Silicon Valley Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced late Sunday. The collapse of SVB a little more than two weeks ago was the U.S.’s largest bank failure since the fall of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and caused widespread panic across the financial sector. SVB’s 17 branches will open Monday as First Citizens’, with its clients becoming those of the latter’s, too. The deal includes the purchase of approximately $72 billion of SVB assets at a discount of $16.5 billion, while around $90 billion in securities and other assets were not included. The FDIC believes SVB’s failure will cost the government’s deposit insurance fund around $20 billion.

In addition, part of the agreement says that First Citizens and the FDIC will both bear the risk of losses on the loans included in the transaction. This type of arrangement is common in the sale of failed banks. For example, the FDIC has agreed to reimburse First Citizens for 50% of any losses exceeding $5 billion on the commercial loan portfolio that is transferred in the deal, according the Times.

In addition to the FDIC, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve have collaborated on a plan to ensure that SVB customers have access to their deposits. To prevent a recurrence of SVB’s sudden collapse, the Fed has also introduced a new lending tool for banks.