Conversations with eight people involved in the discussions reveal the frantic nature of SVB UK’s final hours, with at least half a dozen banks looking over the lender’s numbers.
On Monday, HSBC, Europe’s largest bank with a balance sheet of almost $3 trillion, announced it was buying SVB UK for less than the price of a cup of coffee, emerging as a last-minute white knight after less than 24 hours spent scrutinising its books.
With assets of around 5.5 billion pounds and deposits of around 6.7 billion pounds, SVB UK is a minnow compared to HSBC. But concerns that SVB’s potential failure could reverberate throughout the UK’s start-up industry resulted in a hasty deal, sealed by deep pockets.
“Whether HSBC’s acquisition proves to be successful will largely come down to the asset quality of the loan book, which cannot be assumed to be good, given the early-stage nature of many of the borrowers,” said Jerry del Missier, former Chief Operating…
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