Customers buys $631 million in Signature loans at discount

BLOOMBERG

Customers Bancorp Inc purchased $631 million of loans that belonged to Signature Bank, the latest example of a financial firm snapping up at a steep discount assets associated with a failed US lender.
The purchase from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) was at 85% of the portfolio’s book value, the West Reading, Pennsylvania-based bank said in a statement.
The portfolio was acquired by the FDIC when it seized Signature Bank in March, according to a person with knowledge of the deal. Signature was one of four midsize banks that collapsed this year. The government took over three of them, and has been selling assets from the New York-based lender, as well as those once belonging to Silicon Valley Bank.
In March, when First Citizens BancShares Inc bought Silicon Valley Bank from the regulator, it acquired about $110.1 billion in SVB assets, including $72.1 billion of loans, at a discount of roughly $16.5 billion.
The deal “shows that the FDIC will need to take meaningful discounts on the remaining asset dispositions,” Thomas Dee, who heads the financial services practice at policy analysis firm Capstone, said in an email.
“Discounts may vary on the rest of the portfolio, but investors have shown uncertainty around how to value the failed banks’ loan portfolios.”
As part of the deal announced, Customers said it would add a team of bankers that had worked on the financing. The bankers will join Customers in the next few weeks.
Real estate advisory firm Newmark Group Inc. was hired by the FDIC to sell about $60 billion of Signature Bank loans, Bloomberg reported earlier.