For hours it seemed like nothing was happening. It was the evening of Sunday April 30, 2023, and over at City Oyster in Delray Beach, on the Florida coast, Bruce Van Saun was trying to have one last dinner with friends before closing up his holiday house for the season.
But he was distracted. As chairman and chief executive of Citizens Financial Group, he was also bidding for a failing institution that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was hawking around – First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based commercial and private banking firm with over $200 billion in assets.
A number of banks had submitted offers earlier that day, and Citizens was among those given the chance to fine-tune bids before a 7pm deadline.
The final touches done, Van Saun headed out to dinner. But his cell phone nagged at him as he ate, teasing him with the possibility of good news that could come at any moment.
