Silicon Valley Bank

[deema]

Well, yet another American bank shenanigans……not since 2008 has the American banking sector blundered so badly. Meet the team that drove the bank to insolvency

 

[MikeK]

@deema, you might consider doing just a little research before you blindly post this type of sexist garbage.

From a Newsweek article about this:

But three of the four women identified as members of the "investment committee" don't even work for SVB. Instead, the women are contributors to CNBC's Halftime Report, as part of a group it calls the Investment Committee.

The four women were listed on March 8—two days before the bank's collapse—as contributors to that day's lunchtime show, which is where the image originates.

Of the panel, Saccocia is the only person to have worked for SVB, where she was chief investment officer of SVB Private, the bank's private banking and wealth management arm, which was formerly Boston Private until it was acquired by the bank in 2021.

 

[Blackswanwood]

There is some very lazy journalism behind the so called gender diversity angle to this story. There were six committees reporting to the Board of the bank - there wasn’t an Investment Committee. The Risk Committee was responsible for enterprise wide risk management policies which therefore includes credit risk (lending).

The members of that committee consisted of four males and four females.

I don’t see what gender has to do with it and some of the comments that have been made on social media about iT being proof women cannot do complex jobs are moronic.

Most if not all banks in the UK and US publish data on the gender mix of their senior teams. Diversity is a good not a bad thing.

 

[deema]

@deema, you might consider doing just a little research before you blindly post this type of sexist garbage.

From a Newsweek article about this:

The point was that different emotions are generated by the sex. If it had been all male, the reaction would be very different to all female. The sexism is against men, which was the point. This is a bank that made a big deal of its female make up, not the ability of its board members.
The emphasis should be on ability and not sex, creed or colour.

 

[MikeK]

Okay, now that you have edited out the Twitter image from Lance Manion, the rest of this thread does not make sense. The sexism was erroneously created by the Twitter post.

 

[deema]

@MikeK Happy to add it back. The sexism was created by the bank that felt the need to highlight its proportion of female leaders. When was the just time you saw a business extol its vertues as being say white and male? Racism and sexism run both ways. You need to have balance.

 

[TRITON]

 

[Blackswanwood]

When was the just time you saw a business extol its vertues as being say white and male?

Never - probably as it’s not a virtue whereas having a senior leadership team that is representative of the population is.

 

[MikeK]

The point was that different emotions are generated by the sex. If it had been all male, the reaction would be very different to all female. The sexism is against men, which was the point. This is a bank that made a big deal of its female make up, not the ability of its board members.
The emphasis should be on ability and not sex, creed or colour.

@MikeK Happy to add it back. The sexism was created by the bank that felt the need to highlight its proportion of female leaders. When was the just time you saw a business extol its vertues as being say white and male? Racism and sexism run both ways. You need to have balance.

I'm giving up on you and will now quote your posts since you seem to be quick to edit them. Your initial post was based on a false statement by a Twitter user. Whether you delete the statement or reinstate it, doesn't change the fact that it was false and you ran with it. Did you read the Newsweek article I linked? If you want to look for ghosts, then have fun.

 

[mwinfrance]

All this proves is that there were some wenches amongst the latest wunch of bankers, nothing more.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Triton - how did you manage an empty post?

 

[Geoff_S]

Never - probably as it’s not a virtue whereas having a senior leadership team that is representative of the population is.

If it’s going to represent the population, won’t it need a ne’er do well or a villain as well?

 

[selectortone]

It MUST be true - he read it on the internet!

 

[Richard_C]

I started reading this hoping to discover previously undisclosed links between the sealant industry and high finance. Disappointed.

Mike, why not move it to the pit of insanity forum so no one expecting sense accidentally reads it.

 

[JBaz]

My understanding is that the SVB was set up to hold the deposits of start-up companies who were funded by venture capital and their deposits had tripled in the last year.

As start-ups, the companies had a lot of cash (from the venture capitalists) but no revenue.

All banks make the money to run their operation (and make a profit) by lending the funds on deposit at a higher interest rate than they pay the depositors. Most banks lend to their client base, but SVB's client base had little or no revenue, meaning they weren't in a position to borrow, so to fund their operation and pay interest on deposits SVB put a proportion of the deposits they couldn't lend into bonds.

However, bonds are a long-term fixed-yield investment and when interest rates started to rise SVB's depositors found they could get better rates from other banks, so started to withdraw their deposits causing a run on the bank.

Whilst on paper SVB had sufficient assets to more than cover deposits, if they sold the bonds they held before their mature date SVB would take a significant loss on them and not have enough funds to pay depositors.

Again, as I understand it, the failure of SVB was not due to mal-administration "shenanigans", but due to their having a narrow focus on a relatively few large depositors who were suddenly offered better interest rates elsewhere.

I doubt that many banks could withstand a significant run on deposits, hence the UK Government (who can just print money) protecting personal deposits up to £85,000.

I don't think this is anything like the 2008 banking crisis where banks were buying worthless debts (promises to pay by people with no means to do so) from each other for full value.

Just my understanding.

 

[TRITON]

Triton - how did you manage an empty post?

Theres a pic there.

 

[Spectric]

As start-ups, the companies had a lot of cash (from the venture capitalists) but no revenue.

Nothing more than a big gamble, if it paid off then celebrations otherwise just accept the loss as that is business.

The venture capitalist just placed their bets on the wrong horses, how many startup companies go to the wall in their first year, so they knew the score.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Theres a pic there.

There is now, it wasn't there wasn't when I posted.

 

[John Brown]

I started reading this hoping to discover previously undisclosed links between the sealant industry and high finance. Disappointed.

Mike, why not move it to the pit of insanity forum so no one expecting sense accidentally reads it.

Me too. Either sealants or breast implants...

 

[mwinfrance]

Over on el reg the pace is known as sillycon valley , which is as apt as it could possibly be.