Free Republic

The Meltdown of Commercial Real EstateIn case you’ve still got money in a bank, Bloomberg is warning that defaults in commercial real estate loans could “topple” hundreds of US banks.Leaving taxpayers on the hook for trillions in losses.The note, by Senior Editor James Crombie, walks us through the festering hellscape that is commercial real estate.To set the mood, a new study predicts that nearly half of downtown Pittsburgh office space could be vacant in 4 years. Major cities like San Francisco are already sporting zombie-apocalypse downtowns, with abandoned office buildings baking in the sun.So what happened? The Fed’s yo-yo interest...

On Friday, July 28, 2023, Heartland Tri-State Bank was closed by the Kansas Office of the State Bank Commissioner. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was subsequently named Receiver. No advance notice is given to the public when a financial institution is closed. Dream First Bank, National Association (N.A.), Syracuse, KS assumed all deposit accounts and substantially all the assets. All shares of stock were owned by the holding company, which was not involved in this transaction. ------------------------------------------------- Press Release For Release WASHINGTON – Heartland Tri-State Bank of Elkhart, Kansas, was closed today by the Kansas Office of the State...

Heartland Tri-State Bank of Elkhart, Kansas, failed on Friday, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation taking control.

The FDIC has accidentally released a list of companies it bailed out for billions in the Silicon Valley Bank collapse A document from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which the agency said it mistakenly released unredacted in response to a Bloomberg News Freedom of Information Act request, provides one of the most detailed glimpses yet into the bank’s big customers. BY Lizette Chapman , Jason Leopold , AND Bloomberg June 23, 2023 10:43 AM EDT Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, California Silicon Valley Bank headquarters in Santa Clara, California Philip Pacheco/Bloomberg - Getty Images When federal regulators stepped...

Hendry says a further decline in the M2 money supply, which in part tracks money in liquid checking accounts, could convince the US government to step in and prevent citizens from taking their capital out of the banking system. “Sometimes it’s kind of relevant to panic. I would recommend you panic… You’ve seen the biggest waterfall decline in M2 right now. M2 is deposits, not loans. That’s the deposits fleeing the system and going into money market funds. That could reach a crescendo where the Treasury and the Fed may have to come in and actually restrict your right as...

NEW YORK (AP) — Recent turmoil in the banking industry may have you worried about your money. Since March, three regional banks have failed — Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank. If the recent bank collapses have you worried about the safety of your money, here’s what you need to know: IS MY MONEY SAFE? Yes, if your money is in a U.S. bank insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and you have less than $250,000 there. If the bank fails, you’ll get your money back. Nearly all banks are FDIC insured. You can look for...

Western Alliance Bank denied reports that it’s exploring a sale or has hired an advisor to explore strategic options. Shares of the regional bank tumbled 36% Thursday, slightly paring back its losses after plunging over 50% at one point on reports that the company is the regional bank latest to explore a potential sale. It also dragged down the broader stock market: The Dow fell 400 points, or 1.2%, and the S&P 500 sank 0.9%. The Financial Times, citing two anonymous sources, reported Thursday that the Arizona-based bank is exploring strategic options.

New York/London CNN — Another US regional lender caught up in the worst banking crisis since 2008 is looking for help. PacWest Bank (PACW), based in California, confirmed Thursday that it is exploring “all strategic options” after its share price was cut in half in after-hours trading following a Bloomberg report that it was considering a sale. “Exploring strategic options” is Wall Street lingo for “please help.” The last bank to announce it was exploring strategic options was First Republic Bank (FRC). That regional bank failed Monday, and JPMorgan purchased most of its assets. “In accordance with normal practices the...

there are no banking rules/laws in the Biden Fed/Treasury system. ... The Dodd-Frank laws are still on the books, but the FDIC decision to insure all deposits, regardless of size, now means those laws, rules and regulations are not required to be followed. Additionally, as a result of JPMorgan gaining another $100+/- billion in deposit assets, the law(s) surrounding the 10% U.S. deposit maximum, within too big to fail banks, no longer exists. Noted in the announcement, “JPMorgan Chase is assuming all deposits – insured and uninsured.” JPMorgan is also assuming assets consisting of $173 billion in loans and approximately...

"The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp has asked banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co and PNC Financial Services Group to submit final bids for First Republic Bank by Sunday after gauging their initial interest earlier in the week, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday."

he U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) is preparing to place First Republic Bank (FRC.N) under receivership imminently, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday, sending shares of the lender down nearly 50% in extended trading. The U.S. banking regulator decided the troubled regional lender's position has deteriorated and there is no more time to pursue a rescue through the private sector, the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity because the matter is confidential.

BlackRock Inc. on Tuesday fetched prices of about 85 cents to 90 cents on the dollar for the first batch of assets sold out of $114 billion seized by regulators last month after the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The first list, a roughly $292 million parcel of agency mortgage-backed securities with coupons of about 2.5% to 3%, rolled out before noon Eastern time, according to Empirasign, a platform that tracks trading activity in mortgage bonds and securitized products. “The reality is that the whole point is for BlackRock to get rid of these assets,” said David...

A top Federal Reserve official told Congress Tuesday that Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) failed because it didn't effectively address problems raised by the Fed as early as November 2021. "SVB's failure is a textbook case of mismanagement," said Federal Reserve Vice Chair of Supervision Michael Barr. He listed the factors that led to its failure, noting its concentrated business model, with clients in the technology and venture capital sector. [articles all over the financial news this week, including Rooters, WallStJournal, CNBC, WashCompost, etc]

...The deal for the bank... included the purchase of about $72 billion in loans, at a discount of $16.5 billion, and the transfer of all the bank's deposits, worth $56 billion. Roughly $90 billion in Silicon Valley Bank's securities and other assets were not included in the sale, and remained in the F.D.I.C.'s control.Silicon Valley Bank had roughly $175 billion in deposits before its collapse, an illustration of how extensive the withdrawals were before it was seized by regulators...As part of the deal, the F.D.I.C. will receive rights linked to the stock of First Citizens, which could be worth up...

A trillion dollars is a lot of money. If you stacked a billion dollar bills on top of one another, the pile would be 67.9 miles high, but if you stacked a trillion dollar bills on top of one another the pile would be 67,866 miles high. And if you lined up a trillion dollar bills end to end, the line of dollar bills would be a staggering 96,906,656 miles long. That is longer than the distance from the Earth to the Sun. A trillion dollars is such a vast amount of money that it is truly difficult to comprehend,...

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Monday decided to break up Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and hold two separate auctions for its traditional deposits unit and its private bank after failing to find a buyer for the failed lender last week. It will seek bids for Silicon Valley Private Bank until March 22 and for the bridge bank until March 24. The private bank, which is housed within SVB's retail operations, caters to high net-worth individuals. Bank and non-bank financial firms will be allowed to bid on the asset portfolios, the regulator said. ... First Citizens said in a statement...

A coalition of midsize U.S. banks, Mid-Size Bank Coalition of America (MBCA), has asked regulators to extend FDIC insurance to all deposits for the next two years, Bloomberg News reported on Saturday citing an MBCA letter to regulators. The letter argued that extending insurance will immediately stop the exodus of deposits from smaller banks, which in turn will stabilize the banking sector and restore confidence in banking system, the report said. The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which held a high number of uninsured deposits beyond the FDIC guaranteed limit, prompted customers to move their money to bigger banks and...

We have a serious problem here. Depositors in a bank are NOT risking their money as an investor in a hedge fund. They expect honesty and stability. If the bank is trading and doubles its money, it belongs to the shareholders – not the depositors. Likewise, a loss belongs to the shareholders and that means 100% of all deposits MUST be covered – PERIOD! Even Senator Lankford fails to understand that simply because a Chinese national is a depositor it does NOT justify defaulting on them. That would mean that all foreigners should remove their money from the United States....

It’s important to understand that SVB’s failure didn’t arise from risky startups doing risky startup things.It’s painful for me to watch so many smart pundits and politicians on both the right and the left buy into a media narrative that seeks to blame “wealthy speculators” or “tech bros” or venture capitalists for a banking crisis that ultimately started in Washington. Let me explain.If you want to understand the context for the crisis, look at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation chair’s March 6 testimony — a week before Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse — where he explains that banks were sitting on...

Fallout from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse has directed attention to a $620 billion ticking time bomb in the banking system that has the potential to spell doom for the financial system. SVB's meltdown was partly caused by a chasm between its assets and what they were worth in the market. Eventually, SVB sold some of those assets, spooking investors and triggering a run on the bank. But SVB isn't alone, as banks across the United States were sitting on $620 billion in unrealized potential losses at the end of last year, per the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That hole...