Where is First Republic Bank’s Stock at Today?
Key takeaways
- Regional bank First Republic is now part of the megabank JPMorgan’s empire
- First Republic’s share price is down nearly 100% since the start of the year, but rallied 12% yesterday to hit $0.19
- It’s not the only one — U.S. regional bank stocks this year have struggled across the board
First Republic was one of the regional bank casualties that went down after the dramatic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Now that it’s sold to JPMorgan and the dust has settled, let’s take a quick trip down memory lane at what happened to First Republic in the spring and take a look at how the stock is faring today.
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What happened to First Republic Bank?
Trouble began brewing for regional bank First Republic after the shock collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in March, which not only happened in less than 24 hours but brought two other banks tumbling down with it — U.S. outfit Signature Bank and Switzerland-based Credit Suisse.
First Republic was down but not out until its earnings report emerged. It had lost $70 billion worth of deposits in the first quarter, down 40% from the previous quarter, which was the final nail in the coffin for First Republic’s share price — and the company itself. It soon after collapsed, becoming the third U.S. bank to fail.
Megabank JPMorgan, which led the $30 billion rescue package for First Republic, eventually bought the beleaguered regional bank in April. JPMorgan beat out other rival banks to take on $173 billion of First Republic’s loans, $30 billion of securities and $92 billion in deposits.
As part of the takeover, JPMorgan is now reducing First Republic’s workforce by around 15%, totaling roughly 1,000 jobs lost, as well as closing any First Republic bank branches that are too geographically close to existing JPMorgan branches.
How the stock’s performing
It’s a pretty grim picture for First Republic’s share price this year: since the start of 2023, the stock has plummeted nearly 100%. However, the silver lining is that it rallied over 12% yesterday to hit 19 cents.
In all fairness, other U.S. regional banks haven’t fared particularly well either. PacWest may have seen a small 1.36% uptick in the share price yesterday, but it’s still down nearly 64% in 2023 and a far cry from the highs of almost $50 a share in early 2022. Western Alliance is down 33.6% this year and Glacier Bancorp has plunged 26%.
It’s not much better with indexes, either: the Dow Jones U.S. Select Regional Banks Index and iShares U.S. Regional Banks ETF have lost 27% in value this year.
The bottom line
First Republic was an unfortunate victim of the inflation-interest rate battle. Now it’s safely under the JPMorgan umbrella, it should have some breathing room to recover — and investors will be waiting to see if the new management means the share price could improve.
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