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FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

fdic.gov

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Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#181

Now we just need an "incredible journey" blog post from SVB spinning this acquisition as a great win for both customers and investors.

"This was a learning experience that will provide velocity in our continued disruption of the finance space for startups. We look forward to continuing to maintain a growth mindset as we ~cash your checks~ earn your trust."

Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#182
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40% of startups just had their bank accounts cut down to $250k, so... a lot.

I'm not sure how true this is. I worked at a startup that took in over $100m in investment, and I was curious so I asked the cofounder how they protected that. According to him the money was divided up into chunks smaller than $249k, pushed off to a custom entity made just for the purpose, and then invested in bonds or CDs on a rotating basis. I'm sure a lot of startups will be in trouble, but those that are working…

The FDIC covers $250k per depositor, not per account, and specifically does not cover bond investments. Either your startup created 200+ entities to pull this off (good luck with the rest of compliance) and didn't do bonds at all, or the founder is misled.

Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#184

What a debacle. Some gallows humor from twitter: "Imagine raising $100m for your AI enabled dog washing app - and your bank sets it on fire before you can". Original: https://twitter.com/88888sAccount/status/1634028258500169731...

Its so funny until you realize your seed-round investment in a friends company used SVB. Gonna be quite a show, this.

Isn't the investor justification for taking a huge chunk of profits "we take risk"? I fail to see how this is unfunny just because the risk you took played out in the bad way.

Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#186
post #52

LMAO. Can't even believe how many people were confidently asserting that nothing was wrong yesterday. If you had more than $250k in SVB yesterday you probably just took a huge haircut. Hundreds of startups will become illiquid as a result of SVB's collapse, and there will be major layoffs here in the next 90 days as founders realize that they lost their funds and cannot raise in the current VC environment.

> If you had more than $250k in SVB yesterday you probably just took a huge haircut. You may not lose money. The money isn’t gone yet. The restructuring may save the money. There’s a playbook for this sort of thing.

Well, and until everything is sorted all your deposits above 250k are illiquid now. So, I guess one way to not go under is to find a bank that gives you a generous credit line against whatever deposits there are at SVB. At huge risk margin, and quite a discount on the deposits. If there are such banks willing to do so, that is.

Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#189
post #2

Oldie but goodie on what actually happens when a bank is taken over. https://www.npr.org/2009/03/26/102384657/anatomy-of-a-bank-t...

This case is unique because of the sheer volume of non-FDIC insured deposits. Substantial risk of depositors not being made whole for a while, they’ll probably get all their money but it will still be bad

All their money? I doubt it.

SVB owned a bunch of mortgage backed securities and treasuries - both of which are down 30-50% from their peaks, which coincides with our last venture capital boom. SVB was buying at the top because they had so much capital to deploy.

Maybe instead of cashing it out, depositors could be given a treasury worth 30% less than SVB paid for it, that pays out 1% a year in interest, redeemable at face value in just 20 short years.

Re: FDIC Takes over Silicon Valley Bank

#190
post #57

So any startup which had more than $250k in SVB only has $250k left now I'm assuming? Hopefully this doesn't have a bad domino effect.

$250k is guaranteed by FDIC insurance.

The rest is limbo until the bank is liquidated and the remaining money is distributed.

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