[thedufer]

I think that's a misinterpretation of the data. Based on reports, SVB had around 130B of deposits when it was taken into receivership. Something like 90% of that was uninsured, so around 115B of uninsured deposits. The 20B hole means that without FDIC backing the uninsured deposits, they still could have paid out over 80 cents on the dollar. So if the top ten accounts had about 13.3B of deposits, they only received less than 2.7B of the bailout - less than 15%, not "well over half".

[sam_goody]

Accepted, and thank you for the clarification.

At the time of the collapse there were definitely articles making that claim, with analysis and numbers, and I still assume it to be correct.

When I saw this, I was surprised, it seemed too clean and straightforward. Will have to look for the original sources.

[thedufer]

I strongly suspect that any sources that claimed that simply made the same error that you did.

Looking at the source you provided from the Chairman of the FDIC, it actually says that the top ten accounts held $13.3B - not _more than_ $13.3B, as you claimed. The next ten accounts necessarily held less than that, so say a generous upper bound at $26.6B for the top twenty accounts. In order for them to get at least half of the bailout, they would have needed to hold north of $55B in aggregate. The FDIC itself would have to have gotten the size of SVB's largest depositors wrong by over double in order for your original claim to be true, in the absolute most generous case.