First Citizens Acquires Most Of SVB, Including $2.6B In CRE Loans
First Citizens BancShares, a major regional bank with a long history of acquiring failed banks, agreed on Sunday to buy most of the assets of the failed Silicon Valley Bank, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. SVB's sudden failure earlier this month set off tremors throughout the U.S. banking system.
North Carolina-based First Citizens, the parent of First Citizens Bank, will receive about $56.5B in deposits and the roughly $72B in loans that SVB holds, including about $2.6B in CRE loans, at a $16.5B discount. About $90B in securities and other SVB assets are remaining in receivership and are expected to be sold later.
SVB owns an investment securities portfolio containing $1.3B in qualified affordable housing projects and $14.4B in agency-issued commercial mortgage-backed securities.
First Citizens is also taking over the 17 retail locations formerly operated by SVB. These locations opened Monday morning under the First Citizens brand.
The addition of real estate loans to First Citizens' portfolio represents a modest bump in CRE holdings for the bank. Before the SVB deal, First Citizens held about $24.5B in commercial mortgages.
The FDIC estimates that the cost of the failure of SVB to its Deposit Insurance Fund will be about $20B. As of December 2022, the fund balance stood at $128.2B. The fund isn't generated by federal appropriations but rather through premiums paid by banks and savings associations.
The agency has tapped the fund completely only twice, during the savings and loan crisis of the 1990s and the Great Financial Crisis of the late 2000s.
