On March 27, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) announced in a press release that Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was officially acquired by North Carolina-based First Citizens Bank.
Just over two weeks after many tech startups and venture capitalists withdrew vast sums of money from SVB, it crashed—the second-biggest bank collapse in U.S. history. The announcement ended two weeks of uncertainty for bank employees and the roughly 400 wineries that maintained accounts with its wine division.
SVB’s business is currently running as usual, but there are still many questions for the future of the bank, its wine division and its highly respected annual State of the Wine Industry Report.
“I don’t think we could have ended up in a better spot,” says Rob McMillan, SVB wine department founder and executive vice president . “We’ve been given the trust and freedom to operate like we always have and were able to keep our brand. First Citizens has been around 125 years and have pretty deep agriculture experience with mostly all family farms—that’s pretty much what we do.”
