The First Republic, caught in the maelstrom of the US banking crisis, is sold to JPMorgan Chase. The state deposit insurance fund FDIC said on Monday that it had agreed to sell the assets of the bankrupt bank to JP Morgan. According to insiders, half a dozen banks took part in the bidding process for First Republic, including Citizens Financial and PNC Financial Services.
The First Republic is already the third U.S. bank that has recently fallen into existential distress because customers have withdrawn their deposits en masse. In March, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank went down because of this.
In a concerted effort, major banks had initially poured $30 billion into the likewise struggling First Republic Bank to save it. At the beginning of last week, however, the First Republic had revealed a deposit outflow of more than $100 billion in the first quarter. Investors parted en masse with shares in the bank, after which the price crashed on the stock exchange. On Friday, it became known that the FDIC had detected a further deterioration in the situation at the bank and had launched a new bailout.