JPMorgan is buying First Republic Bank after it was taken over by regulators

JPMorgan is buying First Republic Bank after it was taken over by regulators

  • First Republic Bank was put into receivership by regulators early Monday.

  • JPMorgan is taking over the failed lender and its deposits of almost $104 billion.

  • First Republic's failure is the second-largest in US history.

First Republic Bank will be taken over by JPMorgan after being seized by regulators, marking the third regional bank to be taken over by federal regulators following a consumer panic that took down Silicon Valley Bank in March.

It's the second-largest bank failure in US history.

The FDIC said early Monday that JPMorgan submitted a bid for all of First Republic's deposits, which stood at $103.9 billion as of April 13. JPMorgan said it was assuming deposits of about $92 billion, indicating that more customers had withdrawn funds from the lender after that date.

Deposits will continue to be insured by the FDIC, and customers do not need to change their banking relationship to retain their deposit insurance coverage up to applicable limits.

As part of the transaction, First Republic Bank's 84 offices in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan on Monday.

The FDIC estimated that the cost to its Deposit Insurance Fund will be about $13 billion.

The takeover follows weeks of wrangling by First Republic and its investment banks, led by JPMorgan, for a solution to stay afloat. But no white knight buyer emerged as the stock continued to drop and talent fled.

"Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did," said Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, in a Monday statement. "Our financial strength, capabilities and business model allowed us to develop a bid to execute the transaction in a way to minimize costs to the Deposit Insurance Fund."

JPMorgan is assuming all of First Republic Bank's insured and uninsured deposits as well as most of its assets, the FDIC and JPMorgan said in their statements. JPMorgan is not assuming First Republic's corporate debt or preferred stock, however.

JPMorgan said it expected to recognize a one-off gain of $2.6 billion from the transaction. The bank also expects to run up $2 billion of restructuring costs over the next 18 months.

First Republic shareholders, who have seen the bank's stock lose more than 90% of its value in recent weeks, can expect to be wiped out.

Efforts to stabilize the San Francisco bank started after California regulators shuttered neighboring Silicon Valley Bank on March 10 following large consumer withdraws. Two days later, New York state regulators did the same with Signature Bank.

That same day, JPMorgan partnered with the Federal Reserve to offer $70 billion in financing to First Republic, its long-time client. First Republic's stock continued to plummet, however, resulting in a consortium of banks, led by JPMorgan, investing $30 billion in deposits into the bank on March 16.