BankUnited was revealed Wednesday as one of the losing bidders in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s auction for the assets of Silicon Valley Bank.
On the same day, the Miami Lakes, Florida-based lender notched a win by onboarding three bankers from First Republic, another institution that crumbled amid the crisis of confidence that accelerated in March.
The team is looking to grow BankUnited’s corporate-banking foothold from a New York outpost.
Matthew Gallo joins BankUnited as an executive vice president. He had served as managing director of business banking at First Republic since 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Gallo is a rehire. He spent five years at BankUnited, most recently as senior vice president of middle market lending, and left in 2018. He also previously worked in various roles at TD, Capital One and OakNorth, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Daniel Mills joins BankUnited as a senior vice president and corporate banking relationship manager. He had served as senior director of business banking at First Republic, and previously worked in OakNorth’s debt unit alongside Gallo, according to his LinkedIn profile. Mills also worked in global commercial banking at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch for nine years.
Laura Ackerman, previously a senior underwriter at First Republic, joins BankUnited as a vice president and corporate banking relationship manager. She began her banking career as a credit analyst and underwriter at Capital One from 2017 to 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile.
BankUnited is hardly the first lender to bolster its workforce by hiring talent from banks that recently failed. HSBC hired more than 40 investment bankers from Silicon Valley Bank to establish a new practice aimed at courting tech, healthcare and venture capital clients. MUFG hired SVB’s former head of corporate banking and four other ex-senior executives from the bank to bolster its technology, media and telecommunications unit.
During BankUnited’s first-quarter earnings call last month, CEO Rajinder Singh said he had “interviewed more [loan] producers in the last month than [he] did all of last year.”
"There is a lot of talent and a lot of business that has been thrown off,” Singh said, according to American Banker. "So while there is a moment of caution, it is also a moment of opportunity — and we have to capitalize on that.”
Thomas Cornish, BankUnited’s chief operating officer, said Wednesday the bank is “giving this team the resources they need to deliver the customized financial solutions our clients require to grow and succeed.”
