Regulators seized First Republic Bank and sold most of it to JPMorgan Chase on Monday after the San Francisco-based lender became the third major U.S. bank to collapse this year. First Republic was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation after the bank verged on the brink of failure over the last two months following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) in March. On Monday, 84 branches of First Republic will reopen as JPMorgan branches in eight states across the U.S. after regulators estimated that JPMorgan will have to fork out about $13 billion to cover First Republic’s losses. In a news release Monday, JPMorgan Chase said it had “acquired the substantial majority” of First Republic’s assets, including about $173 billion of loans and $30 billion of securities. The company also said it would protect approximately $92 billion of First Republic’s deposits—but the bank’s previous shareholders have now been wiped out.The crisis represents the second-largest bank failure in American history behind Washington Mutual’s implosion in 2008. Three of the other top four biggest failures have now occurred in the last two months as First Republic, SVB, and Signature Bank went under as chaos roiled the U.S. banking system.
