The pharming assets were held in accounts with Silicon Valley Bank and its UK branch SVB UK. The American bills had $26 million, the British $19 million. Different insured amounts apply to both accounts. Pharming knows for a fact that he will receive $250,000 from the American account, for the British account it is about £85,000. That’s over $100,000.
Whether Pharming can recover more money or even all of its assets depends on any settlements by the US and UK governments or a sale of SVB to another bank. The US regulator FDIC has already announced that it will pay account holders with uninsured assets a percentage of their holdings next week. But the US newspaper The Washington Post reports that if no buyer is found, the US government would even want to insure all assets. A bailout of the SVB itself is out of the question, Finance Minister Janet Yellen has already indicated.
British emergency aid
The UK government has indicated it will present an emergency support package for start-ups that have lost their assets to SVB. This should allow them to continue paying wages and other ongoing costs. But the details are not there yet. They are not expected until Monday.
Pharming itself says it will make “all possible efforts” to recover the funds from the US and the UK.
SVB collapsed on Friday after a bank run occurred. The bank had invested a relatively large portion of the money under its management in low-interest government bonds. But due to the deteriorating economy, many SVB customers needed more cash on hand. The bank could only sell the loss-making government bonds quickly, so the board tried to raise funds with an equity issue, but this led to turmoil in the stock markets and took its toll on customers. On Friday, they attempted to withdraw $42 billion from their SVB accounts before the bank collapsed and US regulators took control.