Silicon Valley Bank staff offered 45 days of work at 1.5 times salary – FDIC email

By Lananh Nguyen and Pete Schroeder

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Employees of Silicon Valley Bank were offered 45 days of employment at 1.5 times their salary by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, the 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, the FDIC wrote in an email late Friday entitled “Employee Retention.” 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 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 U.S. at the end of last year, with about $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in deposits.

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 statement Friday.