NYCB stages a late day rebound but questions linger on the bank’s real estate assets

Shares of New York Community Bancorp, or NYCB, soared more than 6% late Wednesday after the regional bank sought to reassure investors and appointed Alessandro DiNello, the former CEO of Flagstar Bancorp, its executive chairman.

DiNello, who has been on the bank’s board since its buy of Flagstar in December 2022, said on a conference call Wednesday that the bank would, if needed, shrink its balance sheet by selling non-core assets to increase common equity tier 1 ratio, Reuters reported. NYCB would also consider selling loans in its commercial real estate portfolio or allow them to run off the balance sheet naturally, the story said. (Bloomberg on Wednesday said that NYCB was looking to offload commercial property mortgage risk and was exploring loan sales.)

The call came after the regional bank tried late on Tuesday to reassure investors that it was financially stable. NYCB said it had liquidity of $37.3 billion, exceeding its total uninsured deposits, which excluding collateralized and internal deposits, stood at $22.9 billion. NYCB also had about $17 billion of cash on its balance sheet and total deposits of about $83 billion, according to a statement.

NYCB’s shares on Wednesday closed at $4.48, up 28 cents or nearly 7%.  This reversed a seven-day slide that saw NYCB’s stock plunge by nearly 60% to close at $4.20 Tuesday.

NYCB is one of the biggest regional banks in the U.S., with $116.3 billion of assets as of Dec. 31. The bank has grown by acquisition. In 2022, NYCB acquired Flagstar in December 2022, making it one of the top 25 regional banks with $88.4 billion of assets. Last year, it also scooped up some assets and assumed certain liabilities of Signature Bank, which was one of three large banks that failed in 2023. (The other two were First Republic and Silicon Valley Bank. JPMorgan Chase ended up buying First Republic while First Citizens Bank scooped up SVB.)

With the acquisitions, NYCB got “too big too fast,” one banking executive told Fortune. Banks that cross the $100 billion or more asset threshold are subject to stricter banking regulations.

NYCB surprised last week, when on Jan. 31 the bank reported a fourth quarter loss of 36 cents a share that missed Wall Street expectations. It also slashed its dividend by 71% to 5 cents a share. This led Fitch to downgrade the bank’s debt on Feb. 2 to BBB-, while on Feb. 6, Moody’s Investors Service cut its rating on NYCB debt to junk.

“The downgrade reflects Moody's views that NYCB faces high governance risks from its transition with regards to the leadership of its second and third lines of defense, the risk and audit functions of the bank, at a pivotal time,” Moody’s said.

The ratings agency also noted that NYCB was highly concentrated in rent regulated multi-family properties, a segment that has usually performed well for them but might be different this cycle. NYCB had $37.3 billion in multi-family loans as of Dec. 31, according to its Q4 earnings. The properties may face different challenges this cycle due to higher interest expense when refinanced, and are already incurring higher maintenance costs due to inflationary pressures, Moody’s wrote. These higher increases may be harder to pass along to tenants, they said. NYCB also has a significant concentration of low fixed-rate multifamily loans, a loan portfolio that faces refinancing risk, Moody’s said.

One private equity executive, who has invested in banks, said NYCB’s real estate portfolio will continue to pose problems. “There’s more bad news to come,” they said.

Whether a suitor will come in and save NYCB is unclear. Until interest rates go down, it would be “prohibitively expensive” for a bank to come in and buy NYCB, the banking exec said. In May, JPMorgan Chase acquired a majority of First Republic assets and assumed its deposits and certain other liabilities. However, First Republic was in FDIC receivership. “That’s what made it affordable,” the banking exec said.

NYCB did not return messages for comment.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com