Ask HN: As CFO of SVB what would you have done differently on Wed March 8, 2023? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As CFO of SVB what would you have done differently on Wed March 8, 2023?

9 pointsblindriver10 comments

Out of curiosity, if you were the CFO of Silicon Valley Bank, and it was Wednesday, March 8th, 2023, what would you have done differently? Did the CFO have any options available to her that would have saved the company from this fate? Did they have to announce the plans for financing before it was completed? Was the announcement of their plans too premature and the root cause of the bank run?

View on HN

Nobody here probably knows even 1% of the complex variables involved and what options they had and what else they could have tried, so this is just for entertaining idle speculation. But if the bank knew that there was a chance that they could go under, their best bet for saving themselves might have been one of the following (probably) illegal things.

1) Blatantly pump and dump and manipulate some crypto in some way for quick cash. It would be a gamble of course, but maybe better to take a hit to your reputation and draw some minor legal scrutiny and pay some fine later rather than the alternative.

2) Do the usual crooked thing: in closed door meetings with the Feds, say you're going to go under if you don't get some kind of preemptive bailout, and list out the ripple effects to the economy.

1. Would land you in jail if the pump and dump backfires and you loose even more client funds.

2. They prolly did that for sure.

What kind of question is this, there's not enough context to anyone but them to make this decisions, given all the context they have had one might be able to answer it..

Go back in time a year. Hedge interest rate risk when buying low yield long duration bonds intended to be held until maturity. Accept that this offsets income generated, but the bank will still be solvent in a year.

This comment I wrote is wrong, please disregard it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35130813

> Securities held by a bank can be classified as either "Hold to Maturity" or "Available for Sale". HTM assets can not legally be hedged against interest rate risk.

TIL.

Put down a large retainer on a legal team. They were already insolvent. You can’t just solve insolvency

03/08/2023 was too late to do much. 03/08/2022 on the other hand....

If I was the CFO of $SIVB I would've sold $575k in stock on March 8th 2023. No wait, that was February 27th 2023

2023-02-27 SIVB Beck Daniel J CFO S - Sale $287.59 -2,000 4,242 -32% -$575,180

http://openinsider.com/search?q=SIVB

I'm hesitant to use stock sales less than $1M as direct evidence.

Was this amount uncommon? How does it compare to total stock ownership and recent compensation?

Kept my mouth shut probably

Reply on news.ycombinator.com