US regulators seize First Republic Bank and sell it to JPMorgan Chase
- San Francisco-based First Republic is the third midsize bank to fail in two months after Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank
- The bank’s 84 branches in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan Chase and depositors will have full access to all of their deposits, the FDIC said
Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank early on Monday and sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase 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 is the second-biggest bank failure in US history, behind only Washington Mutual, which collapsed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis and was also taken over by JPMorgan.
First Republic has struggled since the March collapses 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 on Monday that First Republic Bank’s 84 branches in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan Chase and depositors will have full access to all of their deposits.
02:30
Silicon Valley Bank collapse stuns tech firms around the world, global operations dismantled
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 holiday on Monday. The two markets in Asia that were open, in Tokyo and Sydney, rose.