One of First Republic Bank’s top executives who was found to have offloaded millions of dollars of the bank’s stocks prior to the fall of Silicon Valley Bank lives in a $9.7 million home that was previously owned by Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, and was featured in a Reese Witherspoon film.
Robert Thornton, 62, who appropriately serves as the bank’s president of private wealth management, bought the sprawling Spanish-style hacienda in Los Angeles in 2020 for $8.9 million, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Other bank executives, meanwhile, own lavish mansions — with the CEO buying a San Francisco property overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in December for $25 million, and its executive director owns a sprawling ranch in the mountains of Wyoming.
Together, Thornton, CEO Michael Roffler, Executive Chairman James Herbert II, Chief Credit Officer David Lichtman sold nearly $12 million worth of stocks in the just the three months before Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, public records show.
None of those sales were pre-scheduled, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In recent months Thornton sold 73 percent of his outstanding shares of Republic Bank for $3.5 million in his first trade since 2021.
But public documents obtained by DailyMail.com reveal that Thornton is the current owner of the Brentwood mansion that previously served as the luxurious home of one-time celebrity couple.
It was built in 1929 and sits on one acre of land, behind a set of stately gates.
The four-bed, four-bathroom house features outdoor fountains, dining terraces, an outdoor fireplace, a large swimming pool and even a guest house.
Inside the sprawling 3,843 square foot property, there is a separate breakfast room and dining room, while the master suite includes its own fireplace and a private spa and secret garden through a set of glass French doors.
It was purchased by Garner in 2004 for $5.5 million, and when she and Affleck got married one year later they initially sought to find a home of their own, before they got settled in the Brentwood home, where they raised their family for 10 years before their divorce.
In more recent years, the home was featured in the Reese Witherspoon rom-com Home Again, in which the actress returns to her childhood home to raise her two daughters when a gang of filmmakers take up residence in her guest house.
Thornton bought the home in July 2020 for $8.95million. It is now worth an estimated $9.7million.
The bank president, meanwhile, is paid $2.23 million each year in his position.
Other executives at the bank are also living the high life, with CEO Michael Roffler owning two separate California properties as he sold nearly $2.3 million worth of shares since November.
He bought a San Francisco property overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in December for $25 million, though it is only valued at around $8.5 million.
A recent Zillow listing for the home notes that it has a ‘glass wine cellar’ and a kitchen that boasts deluxe appliances.
Each of the four bedrooms also has its own en-suite bathrooms, with the master suite taking up the entire top floor. That room also has a deck, where homeowners can relax and take in views of the bridge and the San Francisco Bay.
On the lower floor, there is also a separate apartment.
The wealthy father-of-two also owns a $5.9 million Carmel, California home with five bedrooms and six-and-a-half bathrooms.
That estate spans nearly 7,000 square feet and offers ocean views of Stillwater Cove and Monterey Bay.
It includes a chef’s kitchen, a media room, an exercise room and an outdoor wood-burning fireplace. There is also a separate guesthouse and a four-car garage.
Meanwhile, the bank’s Executive Chairman James Herbert II — who also co-founded First Republic and served as its first CEO — lives a life of ease in the Wyoming countryside.
He sold the most of any of the other insiders, off-loading a whopping $4.5 million worth of shares in two separate sales, worth 7 percent and 5 percent of his holdings in the company, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Herbert’s $4.8 million four-bedroom, four-bathroom ranch was built in 1996 and offers stunning views of the Teton Range.
It includes separate stables for horses with plenty of room for them to roam around on the 4,547 square foot property.
And Chief Credit Officer David Lichtman, who sold $2.5 million worth of shares over the course of three sales since 2023 began, lives simply in a one-bedroom, one-bathroom home with a large swimming pool in Napa Valley.
The last of those sales came on March 6, just two days before Silicon Valley Bank disclosed it had lost $1.8 billion, triggering a massive bank run that forced SVB to close.
Lichtman and his spouse had already sold another $2.5 million in November and December, the Journal reports, making the most sales over just a five-month period than they ever had previously.
None of the filings for the executives’ sales indicate they were executed under 10b5-1 plans, which are prescheduled sales designed to protect business executives from accusations of insider trading, the Journal notes.
But the trades went largely unnoticed as First Republic is not required to report insider sales to the Securities and Exchange Commission, thanks to a provision of the Securities Act of 1933.
Instead, the executives’ trades were reported to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which posts them on its website.
DailyMail.com has reached out to First Republic for comment.
Following the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank last week, investors decided First Republic was also vulnerable, as it carried a lot of unrealized losses on its bank sheet.
Its fair value of its asset portfolio was $26.9 billion less than its book value, the Journal reports, and the difference was well above the equity of $17.4 billion.
The risk for First Republic — as is true at any other bank — is that depositors might pull their cash out faster than the bank can liquidate its assets, which typically include loan portfolios and long-dated bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
In a statement on Sunday, First Republic said it had unused liquidity of more than $70 billion following additional liquidity injections from the Federal Reserve and JPMorgan Chase.
‘First Republic’s capital and liquidity positions are very strong, and its capital remains well above the regulatory threshold for well-capitalized banks,’ Roffler and Herbert said in a joint statement.
But on Wednesday, the bank had its bond rating cut to Junk status by Standard & Poors. And on Thursday, its shares plummeted as much as 35 percent before 11 different banks announced they would infuse the struggling bank with $30 billion.
SOURCE: dailymail.co.uk
