JPMorgan CEO says US banking crisis 'over' after First Republic buyout
The banking giant announced the buyout after it won an auction to acquire First Republic over the weekend.
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JPMorgan Chase & Company Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon photographed on April 18, 2023. (AFP)
Moments after the announcement that JPMorgan Chase acquired First Republic Bank was made, JPMorgan Chase CEO and billionaire Jamie Dimon told analysts that the present banking crisis was over.
"There are only so many banks that were offsides this way," Dimon told analysts in a call after the acquisition was announced on Monday.
"There may be another smaller one, but this pretty much resolves them all," Dimon said. "This part of the crisis is over."
The banking giant announced the buyout after it won an auction to acquire First Republic Bank over the weekend. This means that all assets of First Republic will be transferred to JPMorgan after they were seized by FDIC regulators.
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The total of deposits which JPMorgan will acquire amount to an estimated $92 billion. It will also purchase an estimated $173 billion in loans and $30 billion in securities from First Republic.
The FDIC is also expected to cover $13 billion in losses and provide JPMorgan with $50 billion in financing.
First Republic, the second-largest bank in terms of assets to fail in the United States, has been in freefall since revealing last week that it lost more than $100 billion in deposits in the first quarter, leading its shares to tumble.
The San Francisco-based institution was under intense pressure following the March bankruptcy of smaller banks Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which triggered worries of contagion and shook financial markets.
Officials worked feverishly to devise a rescue plan, and according to a person familiar with the situation, the US Treasury and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which is in charge of insuring bank deposits, approached six banks last week to evaluate their interest in purchasing First Republic's assets.
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As part of the agreement reached early Monday, the California regulator nominated the FDIC as receiver of First Republic, which was sold to JPMorgan Chase immediately.
In a statement, FDIC explained that "to protect depositors, the FDIC is entering into a purchase and assumption agreement with JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, Columbus, Ohio, to assume all of the deposits and substantially all of the assets of First Republic Bank."
The largest bank failure in US history remains that of Washington Mutual, which crashed in 2008 and declared losses worth $307 billion in assets.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in response to the latest buyout that the current financial setbacks were "very different" from those of 2008.
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The 2008 crisis was triggered by the use of subprime mortgages that fueled a housing bubble. The burst of the bubble had resulted in banks being left to hold trillions of dollars of worthless investments, causing several lenders to declare bankruptcy.
It is remembered as the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and took several years before most Americans were able to recover.
