571–580 of 889 posts
SVB is our bank, I got in touch with a member of the senior team there and got the following message to share. (My own interpretation is I'm comfortable and I'm not planning to pursue it further at the moment): As you know, we are limited in what we can share until the transaction formally closes next week but in the meantime I’m attaching concise information on the strength of our business, based on our recent mid-q…
I just received an email from one of our investors, sent to all portfolio companies, advising everyone to transfer all of their money out of SVB at 8:30am tomorrow morning. Investment/VC funds are doing the same (we’re talking many, many billions of deposits lost in a span of a few days). There is a chance SVB will freeze assets while they deal w liquidity crunch which may impact startup ability to pay bills, pay sal…
I will not be giving advice or opinions, but please don’t post anecdotes as facts to generate panic. This isn’t what most VC funds are doing.
If you risk it and SVB goes into receivership: you might fail to make payroll. You might not have money for the taxman. You might default on liabilities.
These are not balanced risks. Any executive which does not pull their company's money to surefire safety is being negligent. Your duty is to your employees, your shareholders, and your suppliers. Not the owners of SVB, or to make the FDIC's job easier.
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Tbh, yes - a bank run by definition occurs if "everyone else is doing it", and in this case it sure seems like we're moving in that direction. And it's beneficial to be the first out, with no real benefit to waiting and seeing.
But what started it?
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Matt Levine is fond of this highly relevant quote by Bagehot: “Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.” It seems that CEOs of banks haven't learned anything since 1873 when this was observed.
> “Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.” Is that terribly worded or is it just me? I figure it’s supposed to be poetic but I find it tedious. I think it could be simplified like this: “A banker who argues his creditworthiness has none.” I realize it’s a quote but holy shit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Matt Levine is fond of this highly relevant quote by Bagehot: “Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.” It seems that CEOs of banks haven't learned anything since 1873 when this was observed.
A variant of Thatcher's "Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren't".
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But why? Because everyone else is doing it? Is this a power play by another bank? Is there an actual structural problem at SVB?
I have no clue about the actual internals at SVB, but an example of why: say a bank has $200bn in assets that they put into mortgage backed securities yielding 1.5% for 10 years. Lets say that means they paid $86 per $100 bond. Now rates rise to 6%, so they're worth $60 per bond. They just lost 30% of $200bn. If their net capital had been +$10bn before this, it's now -$50bn. So, if every single person demanded their…
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> SVB has a fine balance sheet for now, they’re just running out of easy things to sell. Do they? If SVB is sitting on a pile of Treasury bonds that mature in 20 years, they can “hold to maturity” and get their principal plus some very low interest rate. But this is useless! In a fantasy world in which all their depositors leave and they keep those bonds for 20 years, they are indeed worth that amount in 20 years, wh…
> If SVB is sitting on a pile of Treasury bonds that mature in 20 years, they can “hold to maturity” and get their principal plus some very low interest rate. But this is useless! No it isn't. Any other bank would be happy to write a loan backed by US treasury holdings, at no more than a moderate profit. If you're sitting on that, it has value. But it doesn't have value in literal dollars by tomorrow morning to pay o…
This has nothing to do with liquidity. If I had a 0 interest, $100 T bond maturing in 30 years, I cannot sell it today for $100. But anyone who lent me $90, nonrecourse, using it as collateral and asking for only a moderate profit is nuts because this bond is not worth $90 — not even close. Maybe I can get a loan that is based on my own credit-worthiness, but that’s a different story entirely.
If I have this $100 T bond, and I’m a bank, and that T bond is collateral for a $100 savings account paying 4.5% APY, I am in the hole. If my depositor sticks around, I can gamble and hope I can make up my losses (e.g. by interest rates going way down), or I can try to be such an awesome bank going forward that my profits can make up for my losses, and maybe I’ll get away with it, but I don’t really deserve to get away with it.
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Banks don't understand startups. Startups have no history and just appear out of thin air with millions of dollars in their bank account. And then they proceed to burn tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars month on month until they die, or get flooded with more millions. That's some weird stuff!! A bank that understands this, knows it's not fraudulent, and makes it easy to withdraw, deposit, get credit cards,…
I feel like this is unlikely. Startups didn't spring into existence in 2005. Every business was a startup at one point. Even venture capital isn't new. I'd wager every suit and tie wall st old guard firm knows how to handle startups just fine. SVB just had the right branding for young entrepreneurs who assumed JP Morgan wouldn't talk to them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tbh, yes - a bank run by definition occurs if "everyone else is doing it", and in this case it sure seems like we're moving in that direction. And it's beneficial to be the first out, with no real benefit to waiting and seeing.
But what started it?