SVB Financial Group, the former parent company of failed Silicon Valley Bank, is burning through cash while it struggles to gain access to records it says are necessary to move forward in bankruptcy, Bloomberg News reported. The firm is sparring with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over access to those records — things like minutes from board meetings — as well as $2 billion the agency seized after the bank failed in March. “There’s a category of material that the FDIC claims to have some rights over which the debtor also believes is its property,” Jim Bromley, an attorney representing SVB Financial, said during a bankruptcy hearing on Wednesday. First Citizens Bank’s purchase of SVB’s banking operations last month has complicated negotiations, he said. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn expressed repeated concern over the slow pace of the case, especially given the company’s limited cash. “This process has got to move along,” Glenn said in the hearing Wednesday. “It was clear from the first-day hearing that liquidity is limited and it needs to move forward rapidly.” SVB Financial is negotiating with both the FDIC and First Citizens in order to obtain the records at issue and is close to signing a nondisclosure agreement that will aid the exchange, Bromley said.
