Federal regulators were racing on Saturday to seize and sell the troubled First Republic Bank before financial markets open on Monday, according to several people with knowledge of the matter, in a bid to put an end to a banking crisis that began last month with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.
The effort, led by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), comes after First Republic’s shares tumbled 75% since Monday, when the bank disclosed that customers had withdrawn more than half of its deposits, according to the New York Times.
It became clear this past week that nobody was willing to ride to First Republic’s rescue before a government seizure because larger banks were concerned that buying the company would saddle them with billions of dollars in losses, the report added.