Customers Bancorp in West Reading, Pa., has acquired a portfolio of venture banking loans from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The $21 billion-asset company said in a press release that it gained $631 million of loans, paying 85% of book value.
Customers also said it hired 30 people from the group that originated the loans. In addition to California, the bankers are based in Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Denver; Raleigh, N.C.; and Washington.
Customers did not identify the failed bank tied to the loans and bankers.
“This team has deep relationships with their clients over the past two decades,” Chairman and CEO Jay Sidhu said in the release. “They will enhance our relationship-based banking model focused on serving all banking needs of our clients.”
Customer said it will combine the technology and life sciences portfolio with its technology and venture capital banking vertical. The portfolio of capital call loans to VC firms will be combined with the capital call line portfolio in Customers’ fund finance group.
“This loan pool purchase was extremely attractive to us considering the historical customer deposit-to-loan ratio in this vertical of over 2-to-1,” said Sam Sidhu, president of Customers Bank. “We are extremely confident in our ability to build primacy of relationships with these new clients and further improve our liquidity profile with the addition of low-cost, core deposits.”