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The Silicon Valley Bank implosion highlighted the federal deposit insurance limit of $250,000.
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The cap led NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo to open multiple bank accounts to protect his wealth.
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Billionaire investor Marc Lasry told the player to invest in US Treasuries and other assets.
The sudden collapse of Silicon Valley Bank shines a spotlight on federal deposit insurance, which only covers up to $250,000 of a customer’s money at a bank. When Giannis Antetokounmpo learned of the limit, he opened half a dozen bank accounts to protect his fortune.
The basketball star arrived in the US a decade ago at the age of 18, and went to the bank to open an account, he told Bloomberg on Friday. “I didn’t have any money growing up, so I asked them, ‘Is my money safe?'” he recalled. After learning about the $250,000 cap, Antetokounmpo immediately opened accounts at “five, six, seven” banks.
Marc Lasry, the billionaire co-owner of Antetokounmpo’s team, the Milwaukee Bucks, shared his reaction to learning about Antetokounmpo’s multiple bank accounts at the Bloomberg Wealth Summit last year.
“I said, ‘Giannis, you can’t have accounts at 50 different banks,'” Lasry said. “Let me tell you something, if JPMorgan goes under, your little banks go under too.
Lasry, a distressed-debt investor, noted that Antetokounmpo’s anxiety about keeping his money safe probably stems from his childhood in Greece. The Mediterranean country suffered a sovereign debt crisis in the mid-2010s that fueled citizens’ fears that their bank deposits could be seized or lost.
In recent years, Antetokounmpo has acted on the advice of Lasry and other trusted advisers. “There are smarter ways to do it, keep your money safe,” the power forward told Bloomberg, adding that he has strategically expanded his portfolio since the pandemic.
Antetokounmpo has plenty of money to protect and spread. He earned an estimated $81 million on and off the court last year, according to Forbes. The magazine ranked him 10th on the list of the highest paid athletes in the world, behind the likes of Lionel Messi ($130 million), LeBron James ($121 million), and Tom Brady ($84 million).
The “Greek Freak” recently teamed up with Calamos CEO John Koudounis on an exchange-traded fund that invests based on environmental, social, and governance criteria.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) took control of SVB and Signature Bank last month after they suffered a wave of withdrawals, and acted to prevent further bank runs by insuring all deposits of the two lenders.
High-profile investors including Bill Ackman and Mark Cuban have called on the agency to temporarily scrap its $250,000 cap and insure all bank deposits to prevent any further mass withdrawals and more. bank failure.
Read the original article on Business Insider