Viral Post Falsely Links Ex-Lehman Brothers Exec to SVB Collapse

The Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10 when the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation took over the bank and turned it over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

On the weekend, social media posts viewed almost 10 million times between them, a man named Joseph Gentile was linked to the collapse of both Silicon Valley Bank and Lehman Brothers, the bank that collapsed in 2008 and triggered a series of financial disasters that led to the Great Recession.

“It’s really unusual” one of the tweets is reading. “Meet Joseph Gentile. He was the chief administrative officer of a Silicon Valley bank. Prior to joining the firm in 2007, he was CFO of global investment bank Lehman Brothers.”

Did the former top manager of Lehman Brothers work at Silicon Valley Bank?

No, the former top manager of Lehman Brothers did not work for Silicon Valley Bank. He works for SVB Securities, independent of Silicon Valley Bank.

Joseph Gentile, the subject of viral tweets, is currently the chief administrative officer of investment firm SVB Securities. SVB Securities is a subsidiary of the former parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, which is financially independent of the failed bank. Previously, he was the chief financial officer of a division at Lehman Brothers, a large bank, and left about a year and a half before the bank filed for bankruptcy.

A 2022 filing by Silicon Valley Bank with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) lists SVB Financial as the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank. The parent company also owns investment bank SVB Securities and fund management company SVB Capital, according to the filing.

Despite being owned by the same company, SVB Securities is financially independent of Silicon Valley Bank. This means that one may fail while the other does not.

On March 11, SVB Securities announced that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank “will not have a direct impact” on its business operations, “which continue uninterruptedly under the management of SVB Securities’ management team.”

“Since being acquired in January 2019 by SVB Financial Group, the parent company of Silicon Valley Bank, SVB Securities has maintained its financial and operational independence and operated largely autonomously as a separate subsidiary,” SVB Securities said in a statement. “The firm has a strong client base and strong financial position, a strong balance sheet, significant excess net regulatory capital and no outstanding debt.”

In a March 13 press release, SVB Financial Group confirmed that SVB Securities and another of its businesses, SVB Capital, “are separate divisions of SVBFG and not part of Silicon Valley Bank.” These separate divisions are not responsible for the debt of SVB Financial, which is “exploring potential deals” for the two companies.

On the Silicon Valley Bank website, Gentile or CAO as a whole is not listed among Silicon Valley Bank executives. Daniel Beck is listed as the bank’s chief financial officer.

Previously, Gentile was Chief Financial Officer of Lehman Brothers Fixed Income, or FID. He was not the chief financial officer of the entire Lehman Brothers bank. He left his position at Lehman Brothers and joined the company that would become SVB Financial in May 2007, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerReport. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt in September 2008.