Signature Bank had 40 branches across the US.
Days after Signature Bank was shut down by New York-based lender regulators, old videos from the time its executive promoted their new financial institution has resurfaced online. One of the clips shows the bank’s co-founder Scott Shay, CEO Joseph DePaolo and others talking about starting a new bank, according to New York Post. Some executives tell Mr Shay that it is “the stupidest idea” and even quip that it could “diminish and fail”. After 22 years in business, Signature Bank collapsed on Sunday and was taken over by the FDIC, the federal agency in the US that insures bank deposits.
The video has been posted on Twitter by Genevieve Roch-Decter, a money manager and Substack blogger.
The execs also tried their hands at a comedy sketch/musical combo.
I’m speechless. pic.twitter.com/y3lWDCcSlp
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) March 13, 2023
“Look, the only way we are going to do this thing is if we start a bank from scratch,” Mr Shay is heard telling fellow executives as the video starts.
“From scratch?” replies John Tamberlane, the bank’s vice chairman. “You gotta be kidding.”
“How in the world do you do that?” asks Joseph DePaolo, Signature’s CEO. “Is there a book ‘How to Build a Bank for Dummies?'”
They bankers then talk about “we’d have to make our own mistakes” and “we’d have nobody to blame but ourselves”, before they break into a song saying the notion is “the stupidest idea that I have ever heard”.
“We’re sick of the stank of the major bank so we start one? It’s absurd,” the three bankers sing. “What a terrible proposition – like convincing the world to eat kale,” they add along with a chorus.
“What possible fate will become of our bank other than to diminish and fail?” other actors ask as if they could predict what would become of Signature Bank.
Mr Shay then turns around and triumphantly tells them, “I happen to know for a fact that won’t happen.”
They conclude by promising to “built to last and to enthrall”.
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Posting the video, Ms Roch-Decter tweeted, “Is it surprising that Signature Bank failed? Their executive team spent millions of dollars to produce music videos & TV shows about themselves. Try not to cringe as you watch this.”
Is it surprising that Signature Bank failed?
Their executive team spent millions of dollars to produce music videos & TV shows about themselves
Try not to cringe as you watch this: pic.twitter.com/16K70FQq5o
— Genevieve Roch-Decter, CFA (@GRDecter) March 13, 2023
In another tweet, she said: “From someone I know who worked at Signature Bank for several years: The Management Team was basically like the show, the Office. They’d waste money on things like producing parody videos.”
It is not known when these videos were produced but according to New York Post, they were uploaded on YouTube nine years ago.
Signature Bank is the second bank to collapse in the US after Silicon Valley Bank. Signature Bank had 40 branches across the country – New York, California, Connecticut, North Carolina and Nevada.
According to US government, it had total assets of $110.4 billion and total deposits of $82.6 billion as of December 31, 2022.
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