FDIC sells most of failed Signature Bank to Flagstar
The Signature Bank headquarters at 565 Fifth Avenue in New York
By David Goldman, CNN
A week after Signature Bank failed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said it has sold most of its deposits to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bank.
On Monday, Signature Bank’s 40 branches will begin operating as Flagstar Bank. Signature customers won’t need to make any changes to do their banking Monday.
New York Community Bank bought substantially all of Signature’s deposits and a total of $38.4 billion worth of the company’s assets. That includes $12.9 billion of Signature’s loans, which New York Community Bank purchased at a steep discount -— it paid just $2.7 billion for them. New York Community Bank also paid the FDIC stock that could be worth up to $300 million.
At the end of last year, Signature had more than $110 billion worth of assets, including $88.6 billion of deposits, showing how the run against the bank two weeks ago led to a massive decline in deposits.
Not included in the transaction is about $60 billion in other assets, which will remain in the FDIC’s receivership. It also doesn’t include $4 billion in deposits from Signature’s digital bank business.
As the banking crisis spreads, banks have grown increasingly wary of taking on risk. That’s likely why New York Community Bank was unwilling to take on all Signature’s assets.
“We are unsurprised the FDIC retained loans as we would expect banks to be cautious on quickly buying loans without liability and loss protections,” said Jaret Seiberg, analyst at TD Cowan. “More broadly, we see it as positive for consumer confidence for the branches to be opening Monday as NYCB branches.”
The FDIC said Sunday it expects to sell off those assets over time, and the total cost to the government will ultimately be about $2.5 billion.
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