Some lawmakers have also rebuked Becker for dishing out bonuses and have questioned whether he and other executives profited from stock sales ahead of the bank's collapse. Becker could not be reached by phone for comment. Shay and Howell did not respond to requests for comment.
In prepared testimony published ahead of Tuesday's hearing, Becker said the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes as well as panic on social media were the downfall of his bank, and said executives were responsive to concerns that had been raised by regulators. Shay and Howell in prepared testimony said they disagreed with regulators' decisions to close Signature and that the bank would have been able to process withdrawal requests.
Federal regulators invoked emergency powers to backstop all deposits at SVB and Signature. They facilitated the sale of SVB to North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank and the sale of Signature to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bancorp Inc .
Regulators will also appear before Congress on Tuesday at a separate House of Representatives hearing where lawmakers are expected to question their oversight of the lenders, how they handled the failures, and their decision earlier this month to broker a sale of troubled First Republic Bank to JPMorgan.
'THE HIGHEST OF HIGHS’
But Becker, who joined SVB three decades ago as a loan officer, is likely to draw the most scrutiny. He cut his teeth during the dotcom bubble and later steered the startup-focused lender in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. He became president and CEO of SVB Financial Group in 2011.? In January, Becker said the economic outlook was improving after a downbeat 2022.? “We're optimistic," Becker told CNBC. Becker graduated from Indiana University with a bachelor's degree in business, according to a biography published on talent booking agency All American Speakers Bureau's website. From there, he worked at a bank that served what he called "traditional companies." When his manager left to work for Silicon Valley Bank, Becker followed, he said on a 2021 Bloomberg podcast.?
The banker described his first few years at SVB as "the highest of highs and the lowest of lows" as the lender navigated the tech rout of the late 1990s.?
"We took losses. It was a challenging time for us ... I look back on it fondly. I learned a lot about the institution. I learned a lot about how to lend money," he said.?
Before becoming president and CEO of SVB Financial Group, Becker co-founded SVB Capital, the company's investment arm.
He also served on the board of directors at the Federal
Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2019 up until March 10, a
spokesperson for the regional Fed bank said.
(Reporting by Hannah Lang in Washington; Editing by Lananh
Nguyen, Michelle Price and Matthew Lewis)
