When the regulators who took management of Silicon Valley Financial institution on Friday needed to rapidly discover somebody to run what remained of its companies, they selected Tim Mayopoulos, a lawyer who had steered a number of banking and monetary expertise organizations via powerful occasions.
Mr. Mayopoulous was Financial institution of America’s common counsel in the course of the 2008 monetary disaster. He left the financial institution that December and later grew to become the chief government of Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage insurer. In 2019, he grew to become president of Mix, a expertise start-up that gives cloud computing companies to banks. He additionally helped to untangle a large number at a web-based lending platform, Lending Membership, by becoming a member of its board weeks after its chief government was ousted.
“He’s cool as a cucumber,” stated Brian Brooks, a lawyer who has labored with Mr. Mayopoulos all through his profession, together with as Fannie’s common counsel when Mr. Mayopoulos was its chief government.
“Going via the monetary disaster at Financial institution of America throughout all of the loopy stuff that occurred, he was the man whose demeanor by no means modified,” Mr. Brooks stated.
Many imagine that Mr. Mayopoulos’s connections to enterprise capitalists will assist him cope with no matter cleanup is important contained in the financial institution, often called Silicon Valley Bridge Financial institution, which was created when the Federal Deposit Insurance coverage Company took management of Silicon Valley Financial institution. However he could not maintain the job for lengthy — most certainly simply till the F.D.I.C. can promote it, entire or in items, or liquidate it. Regulators are nonetheless speaking to consumers.
Mr. Mayopoulos must run the financial institution’s companies, together with its depository features, whereas sifting via what’s left of the failed entity, on the lookout for investments and loans that also have worth, all beneath the watchful eyes of a board of administrators appointed by the F.D.I.C.
“At this level, he simply must run the conventional operations of the financial institution till it’s going to be clear what’s going to occur with it,” stated Roberto Robatto, an assistant professor of finance on the College of Wisconsin-Madison Faculty of Enterprise.
“He in all probability has to make very conservative selections at any time when points come up,” Mr. Robatto stated. “He must attempt to decrease dangers going ahead and ensure to guard the worth of what’s left.”
The collapse of Silicon Valley Financial institution, which had practically $209 billion in belongings on the finish of final 12 months, is the second-largest financial institution failure in U.S. historical past, and the most important since Washington Mutual imploded amid the 2008 monetary disaster.
Silicon Valley Financial institution’s case resembles one other financial institution that failed in 2008: IndyMac Financial institution, which was beneath the management of the F.D.I.C. for 9 months, from July 2008 to March 2009, when a gaggle of buyers purchased it and remodeled it into OneWest Financial institution. Mr. Mayopoulos will most certainly attempt to hold Silicon Valley Financial institution’s companies in adequate form that they attraction to consumers regardless of how lengthy a sale takes.
An F.D.I.C. spokesman stated Mr. Mayopoulos’s title had been on an inventory, created as early as 2017, of “seasoned monetary companies professionals” who may very well be known as on in circumstances when the company wanted to take over a financial institution and change its administration staff.
Mr. Mayopoulos’s expertise with tech start-ups and enterprise capital pursuits began in 2016, when he was nonetheless Fannie Mae’s chief government; that 12 months, he joined the board of Lending Membership after its founder was caught mendacity to the corporate’s board and compelled out.
Mr. Mayopoulos gained a deep understanding of the world of enterprise capital when he grew to become president of Mix, stated Hans Morris, a managing associate of the enterprise capital agency Nyca Companions and the board chairman of Lending Membership.
“He bridges these three worlds — the political world, the monetary world and the enterprise ecosystem,” Mr. Morris stated. “He’s superb at taking a posh set of variables and info and totally different pursuits, and sorting them into an answer.”
