First Republic stock plunges after depositors flee

First Republic Bank’s stock plunged on Tuesday after it said depositors withdrew more than $100 billion during last month’s crisis, with fears swirling that it could be the third bank to fail after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

The San Francisco bank said late Monday that it was only able to staunch the bleeding after a group of large banks stepped in to save it by injecting $30 billion in uninsured deposits.

First Republic had roughly $290 billion in assets as of March 31, making it larger than SVB at the time of its failure.

The troubled bank said it now plans to sell off assets and restructure its balance sheet, and lay off as much as a quarter of its workforce, which totaled about 7,200 employees at the end of 2022.

“With still a large level of uncertainty in outcomes and expected losses beyond the next year, we recommend investors sell shares as the outlook appears largely unclear,” Citi analyst Arren Cyganovich said in a note to clients.

Shares of First Republic plummeted 44% on Tuesday, to about $9 a share.

Other regional banks were under pressure in a down day for markets. The S&P 500 lost 1.2% early Tuesday afternoon. The Dow fell 0.8% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.5%.