The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was a “Lehman moment” for the technology industry, according to a top Goldman Sachs deal-maker.
Cliff Marriott, co-head of technology, media and telecoms in Europe for the investment banking division of Goldman Sachs, said that the March 10 shutdown of SVB was “pretty stressful,” as the lender’s clientele scrambled to figure out how they would make payroll.
“That first weekend was a little bit like the Lehman moment for technology and it was really more operational for those companies,” Marriott told CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal in an interview at a Goldman Sachs tech symposium that aired Tuesday on “Squawk Box Europe.”
“They needed access to capital. A lot of their balances were on SVB. And, secondly, SVB was propelling and making a lot of their payments for payroll to pay their employees.”
Founded in 1983, SVB was considered a reliable source of funding for tech startups and venture capital firms. A subsidiary of SVB Financial Group, the California-based commercial lender was, at one point, the 16th-biggest bank in the U.S. and the largest in Silicon Valley by deposits.
SVB was taken over by the U.S. government after its clientele of venture capitalists and tech startups withdrew billions from their accounts. Many VCs had advised portfolio companies to pull funds on the back of fears that the lender may crumble.
SVB Financial Group’s holdings — assets such as U.S. Treasury bills and government-backed mortgage securities that were viewed as safe — were hit by the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes, and their value dropped dramatically.
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Earlier this month, the firm revealed it had sold $21 billion worth of its securities at a roughly $1.8 billion loss and said it needed to raise $2.25 billion to meet clients’ withdrawal needs and fund new lending.
The future of SVB remains uncertain, even though deposits were ultimately backstopped by the government and SVB’s government-appointed CEO attempted to reassure clients the bank remained open for business.
Marriott said there is “still a big question mark regarding what bank or firm or set of firms is going to replace SVB in terms of providing those utility-like services for technology, giving them bank accounts, allowing them to make payroll, holding their cash balances.”
