NYCB Discloses Signature Bank’s Total Fair Value Was $37.8 Billion

New York Community Bancorp (NYCB) released financial information about its March acquisition of certain assets of Signature Bridge Bank, the successor to Signature Bank, from that bank’s receiver, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC).

NYCB’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Flagstar Bank, acquired assets with an estimated total fair value of $37.8 billion as of the transaction date, the bank said in a Thursday (June 13) filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The figure includes $24.9 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $11.7 billion in loans and leases, NYCB added in the filing.

Flagstar Bank also assumed liabilities with an estimated fair value of $35.7 billion, including $33.5 billion in customer deposits, according to the filing.

The bank acquired certain assets of Signature Bank in March 2023, one week after the FDIC had assumed control of the failed bank.

Signature Bank collapsed two days after the high-profile failure of Silicon Valley Bank and days after another bank, Silvergate, announced it was self-liquidating.

Regulators closed down Signature Bank in an attempt to stave off a banking crisis, with the FDIC, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury announcing the closure under a “systemic risk exception.”

Earlier, Signature Bank sought to distance itself from the digital asset sector after the downfall of cryptocurrency platform FTX, which was one of the bank’s clients.

Signature Bank, which originally focused on commercial real estate, became one of the few banks to welcome cryptocurrency deposits in 2018. It had relationships with Circle, Coinbase, Kraken and other major crypto players.

After regulators seized Silicon Valley Bank, Signature became one of the many midsize banks that found itself facing a crisis of confidence. The bank was also reeling from its bet on banking a crypto industry that had begun to flounder after a series of implosions.

In April 2023, the FDIC attributed Signature Bank’s failure to its “poor management” and inadequate risk policing practices that left it vulnerable to the “contagion effects” of the liquidation of Silvergate Bank and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

The FDIC said that was the “root cause” of the bank’s failure.