The Silicon Valley Bank was a bank which catered to small businesses in the technology industry, which is a risky industry that many other banks won’t loan to. SVB had a major collapse on March 10th, 2023. They had assets totaling in $209 billion and was the biggest U.S. lender to fail since 2008, and the 2nd biggest ever.
Within 48 hours, a run on the bank led to customers rapidly pulling their money out. This was caused by the bank's announcement that they had sold a portion of securities at a loss and would sell new shares to fill the hole and the lack of diversity within the bank's portfolio. This made consumers withdraw, but the bank had many long term investments and didn't have the cash to liquidate these deposits.
This dragged down SVB’s stock by 60%, and this drop scared investors in other banks, worried that this was a global financial crisis. Since their lack of diversity was made up by businesses with big accounts, it didn't take long for their money to dissipate.
California officials were forced to intervene and place it in receivership under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. They follow by liquidating the bank's assets and guaranteeing that consumers get paid back. The federal reserve did not guarantee the money back to any shareholders or unsecured creditors.
First Citizens Bank recently announced that they would be purchasing SVB and taking over most of its deposits and loans. They will take about $72 billion of the $167 billion assets and $16.5 billion out of $199 billion deposits. The FDIC estimated that almost $20 billion was lost in this crash.
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