First Citizens Plans to Retire Silicon Valley Bank Name

Three years ago, First Citizens BancShares acquired failing crypto/tech-focused lender Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

Now, First Citizens says it’s time for an SVB rebrand, according to a Thursday (April 23) news release.

Starting in the fourth quarter of this year, Silicon Valley Bank will be divided into two units: First Citizens Innovation Banking and First Citizens Fund Banking.

CIT Commercial Services, a working capital financing provider acquired by First Citizens in 2022, and the Silicon Valley Bank Wine division will rebrand as First Citizens Bank, the bank said in its announcement.

“Following our acquisitions of CIT and SVB in 2022 and 2023, our clients have seen that their tailored experience has been retained under First Citizens for the last several years, and that is not changing,” First Citizens Chairman and CEO Frank Holding, Jr. said in the release.

“Our brand strategy is aligning with our business strategy and another sign of our long-term commitment to the innovation economy and the private equity sector. The experience we offer will stay the same. Only the names will change, and we continue to invest in our capabilities to make the experience for our clients even better.”

SVB was taken over and shuttered by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation in March of 2023 after the regulator found “inadequate liquidity and solvency.”

The department appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as the bank’s receiver, and the FDIC reached an agreement with First Citizens, which bought $72 billion worth of SVB’s assets for $16 billion.

In the days leading to the takeover, Silicon Valley Bank had been faced  with customer withdrawals and plummeting stock prices after it incurred a $1.8 billion after-tax loss on the sale of its investments, and some investors became uneasy about its liquidity.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has commissioned a third-party review of SVB’s collapse, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle W. Bowman said last month.

Speaking in an interview on Fox Business’ “Mornings with Maria,” Bowman said there was evidence of issues with the bank’s condition as early as 2022, and that those issues were included in the regularly published regulatory reports by the Federal Reserve.

“So, I think what happened there was really a failure of supervision and a failure of bank management,” Bowman said. “So, actually, we’ve just hired an external review to be conducted on all of the events that led to the failure of Silicon Valley Bank to ensure that we don’t repeat the same mistakes going forward.”

Her comments echoed the findings in the Fed’s 2023 post-mortem on the collapse, which said SVB “failed because of a textbook case of mismanagement by the bank.”