Billionaire Warren Buffett, the head of giant Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has held talks with senior Biden administration officials about the banking crisis, according to sources cited by Bloomberg. Dozens of private planes would have landed in Omaha, Berkshire’s headquarters in the US, in the past few days, according to information available on flight tracking portals and quoted by a Twitter user who followed the subject.
The White House and the US Treasury declined to comment on the report to Bloomberg, which reported that Buffett had been in touch with administration officials in recent days about the banking crisis.
There have been several conversations between Biden’s team and Buffett over the past week, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, who asked not to be named because the information is private. The administration’s calls to the White House focused on how the multi-billionaire could somehow invest in the US regional banking sector, but discussions also covered broader advice and guidance from the Wall Street “legend” on to the turmoil facing the US banking system.
The nonagenarian Warren Buffett is known for his interventions, repeatedly, in the case of banks in crisis of liquidity. For example, Bank of America received an injection of capital from Buffett in 2011 after its stock fell amid losses on subprime loans. Buffett also injected the giant Goldman Sachs with a $5 billion bailout in 2008 to prop up the bank after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
Biden’s team made huge efforts to prevent a hard landing of the US banking system after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), billed as the biggest banking crisis since 2008. The US government has announced that SVB customer deposits are guaranteed not by “citizens’ money” but by funds deposited by banks with the Federal Depository Insurance Corp (FDIC). It emerged the other day that SVB CEO Greg Becker sold $3.6 million worth of stock in late February, about two weeks before the bank went into FDIC receivership, as Bloomberg noted at the time.
Biden calls for “tougher” punishment of failed bank chiefs
US President Joe Biden called on Congress “to act to punish bank executives whose mismanagement contributed to the failure of their institutions” and to give regulators more power over the banking sector.
“Current law limits the administration’s authority to hold executives accountable,” the White House leader said.
The collapse of SVB was preceded by the freezing of operations of two other large US banks: Silvergate and Signature Bank, known to be lenders to the cryptocurrency industry.
The shock rippled through the banking industry, and First Republic Bank shares continued their dramatic slide on Friday, March 17, despite the biggest US banks coming together to put up more than $30 billion in a bid to prevent a third US bank collapse in a week, the Financial Times reported at the time.
According to CNN sources, top Wall Street banks including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup participated in the financing deal talks.
Thus, according to Bloomberg sources, the “legend” Warren Buffett was not missing from this table, the multi-billionaire being consulted by the Biden Administration regarding the necessary measures to prevent a forced landing of the banking system.
Dozens of private jets landed in Omaha where Berkshire is headquartered
More than 20 private jets reportedly landed in Omaha, Berkshire’s headquarters, late last week, according to information available on globe.adsbexchange.com and cited by a Twitter user.
A large number (>20) of Private Jets landed in Omaha yesterday afternoon
Jets flew from HQs of Regional Banks, Ski Resorts & DC
Did Buffett just fly all the regional bank CEOs into Omaha & offer a deal to SAVE the banks?$BRK.B$WAL, $PACW, $FRC, $ZION, $KEY, $FITB&more
— FuzzyPanda 🇺🇦 (@FuzzyPandaShort) March 17, 2023
