Western Alliance Falls On Lack Of Details On Deposit Balance

(Bloomberg) -- Western Alliance Bancorp fell as much as 12% after the regional bank updated its financial disclosures without saying more about its deposit balance.

“Investors are likely to come to the conclusion that management didn't provide a deposit balance because it's not good news,” Casey Haire, an analyst at Jefferies Financial Group Inc., said in a note to clients. “This is the fourth update since March 10 and the only one that does not explicitly address deposits.”

Investors have been focused on the metric after a run on deposits contributed to the collapse of three lenders last month. Deposits at smaller US banks slumped $120 billion in the week through March 15 while those for the 25 largest firms rose almost $67 billion, Federal Reserve data show. Outflows at US lenders more broadly continued the following week, with $125.7 billion withdrawn, though smaller banks posted a slight increase. Many customers are also shifting their funds to higher-yielding alternatives, adding to the pressure on regional banks.

Western Alliance's insured deposits represented about 68% of the bank's total as of March 31, the Phoenix-based company said in a statement after the market closed Tuesday. That was higher than the 55% the bank disclosed as of March 16, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, which also pointed to liquidity levels sufficient to cover a “healthy” 140% of uninsured deposits.

But without giving an explicit deposit balance, the update raises more questions than answers and is likely to “frustrate investors,” Haire at Jefferies said.

Shares of the company, which are down 50% this year, slid 10% to $30.06 at 9:48 a.m. in New York, after earlier dropping as much as 12%.

A representative for Western Alliance didn't immediately respond to a request for comment left before normal business hours.

Deposit Estimate

David Chiaverini, an analyst at Wedbush Securities Inc., estimated that deposits at Western Alliance could have dropped about 15% in the first quarter, compared with a prior estimate of a 9% decline.

In its update, Western Alliance said it had no borrowings outstanding from the Federal Reserve's discount window “after balance sheet repositioning,” and its CET1 ratio is expected to be “materially consistent with year-end 2022.”

Unrealized losses on securities-held-for-investment loans improved to $2.9 billion on a pretax basis from $4.2 billion at the end of 2022 “primarily due to lower interest rates,” the company said in the statement. Residential loans are the primary contributor to unrealized losses on the bank's held-for-investment loans, it said.

--With assistance from Greg Chang, Sridhar Natarajan and Max Reyes.

(Updates share price in first and sixth paragraphs.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.