SVB

In some ways, Larry Fink is an unsurprising villain. Wall Street titans aren’t in the business of being loved, and as the Chairman of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager assets, Fink isn’t a Master of the Universe. He’s the guy they work for. Paradoxically, though, it isn’t good, old-fashioned greed that has made Fink a figure of popular contempt, but his quest for political approval. With a foray into win-win talk of responsible capitalism and ethical investing, Fink has turned himself, and his firm, into a punchbag for both the left and the right.  In recent years, Fink has become the face of ESG — the multifarious push to put environmental, social and governance concerns at the heart of investment decisions. At first, Fink leant into the role.

Even by the standards of bank runs, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was remarkable. In February, Forbes magazine had put it on its Best 100 Banks list. Yet on Thursday, depositors withdrew $48 billion. That’s $14 million a second. Lines formed outside the bank’s various branches, reminiscent of the Great Depression. California banking authorities shut it down and turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for sale or liquidation. So what happened? Silicon Valley Bank had grown very quickly over the past few years, In early 2020, it had a deposit base of $55 billion. A mere two years later, its deposits had reached $220 billion. But that was more money than it could put into lending to its narrow base.