By Pete Schroeder and David French
(Reuters) – Two U.S. regulators have approved the sale of a majority stake in TIAA’s banking arm to a consortium of private equity firms, a TIAA spokesperson said on Friday.
The spokesperson said TIAA now expects the deal to be completed as early as this summer after the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) offered their clearance. TIAA had previously given itself the entirety of 2023 to win the approvals needed for deal completion.
The federal approval comes as regulators have been deliberating about the role that private equity firms can play in the U.S. banking sector in the wake of the collapse of regional lenders Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank and their subsequent sale to other banks.
Private equity firms unsuccessfully pursued some of the assets of Silicon Valley Bank once it was taken over by regulators in March.
The deal with the private equity firms, which include Stone Point Capital, Warburg Pincus, Reverence Capital Partners, Sixth Street and Bayview Asset Management, remains subject to approval by the New York Department of Financial Services.
(Reporting by Pete Schroeder in Washington, D.C. and David French in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
