Regulators seize First Republic Bank, sell to JPMorgan Chase
New York, May 1
Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank and sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank in a bid to head off further banking turmoil in the US.
San Francisco-based First Republic is the third midsize bank to fail in two months. It has struggled since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and investors and depositors had grown increasingly worried it might not survive because of its high amount of uninsured deposits and exposure to low interest rate loans.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said early on Monday that First Republic Bank’s 84 branches in eight states will reopen on Monday as branches of JPMorgan Chase Bank.
Regulators worked through the weekend to find a way forward before US stock markets opened. Markets in many parts of the world were closed for May 1 holidays on Monday.
As of April 13, First Republic had approximately USD 229 billion in total assets and USD 104 billion in total deposits, the FDIC said. At the end of last year, the Federal Reserve ranked it 14th in size among US commercial banks.
Before Silicon Valley Bank failed, First Republic had a banking franchise that was the envy of most of the industry. Its clients — mostly the rich and powerful — rarely defaulted on their loans. The 72-branch bank has made much of its money-making low-cost loans to the wealthy, which reportedly included Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
