Silicon Valley Bank staff offered 45 days of work at 1.5 times pay, FDIC email shows

Kitco Media
By Reuters
Published:
Updated:
Reuters

NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - Employees of Silicon Valley Bank were offered 45 days of employment at one and a half times their salary by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the U.S. regulator that took control of the collapsed lender on Friday, according to an email to staff seen by Reuters.

Workers will be enrolled and given information about benefits over the weekend by the FDIC, and healthcare details will be provided by the former parent company SVB Financial Group (SIVB.O), the FDIC wrote in an email entitled "Employee Retention" late on Friday. SVB had a workforce of 8,528 at the end of last year.

Staff were told to continue working remotely, except for essential workers and branch employees.

The FDIC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Silicon Valley Bank imploded after depositors, concerned about the lender's financial health, rushed to withdraw their deposits. The frenetic two-day run on the bank blindsided observers and stunned markets, wiping out more than $100 billion in market value for U.S. banks. SVB ranked as the 16th biggest bank in the United States at the end of last year, with about $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in deposits.

Members of California's congressional delegation are set to be briefed by FDIC officials on Saturday, according to a report by Politico, which cited two people familiar with the situation.

The lender's main office in Santa Clara, California, and all of its 17 branches in California and Massachusetts will reopen on Monday, the FDIC said in a statementon Friday.

Reporting by Lananh Nguyen in New York and Pete Schroeder in Washington; Editing by Megan Davies, Franklin Paul and Paul Simao
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