Blank Check Firm Porticoes Plans to Snap Up Fallen Banks

bank

Blank check firm Porticoes Capital is reportedly planning to buy up failed U.S. banks.

The group aims to take over banks that have been closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), the Financial Times reported Wednesday (March 13), citing a regulatory filing.

According to the FT report, Porticoes is like a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in that it would need to acquire another company before going into business. But it differs from a SPAC in that the amount it raises from investors will depend on the size of the bank it acquires.

The report also postulates that Porticoes’ plan to target failed banks suggests it anticipates more trouble for the industry after last year’s regional banking crisis, kicked off by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB).

The FT also notes that the FDIC normally likes to sell failed banks to other banks, so that everything remains under the watch of regulators. It’s a system that has kept out private investors. Porticoes was able to gain access via a “shelf charter” from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“I’m an advocate for the shelf charter,” Brian Brooks, partner at law firm O’Melveny & Myers and a former acting comptroller of the currency, told the FT. “In the failure of SVB, numerous potential bidders were excluded from the process, and as a result the cost to the FDIC deposit insurance fund might not have been minimized.”

As PYMNTS wrote earlier this week upon the anniversary of the SVB collapse, the crisis raised the FDIC’s public profile for the first time in years.

“In the aftermath of SVB, the question of deposit insurance — how much and who should get it — has been hotly debated in finance,” that report said.

The regulator said last year that it was in favor of “targeted coverage” as one of the options for deposit insurance reform. Through that path, different deposit insurance limits would be offered different types of accounts, with business payment accounts receiving “significantly higher” coverage than others.

“The FDIC believes targeted coverage best meets the objectives of deposit insurance of financial stability and depositor protection relative to its costs,” the FDIC said in May.

As PYMNTS wrote, the topic could get some renewed interest, as New York Community Bank, which last year acquired another failed lender, Signature Bank, lost roughly 7% of deposits and warned of “material weaknesses.”


Upwork: Demand for AI Talent Drove Record Revenue in 2024

Work marketplace Upwork earned record revenue in 2024 and attributed its gains in part to artificial intelligence (AI).

In an earnings release and other materials issued Wednesday (Feb. 12), the company highlighted AI innovations it added to its marketplace platform and AI talent the platform connects with its clients.

“We’ve rapidly unlocked demand for AI-related work on our platform,” Upwork President and CEO Hayden Brown said in prepared remarks for the company’s quarterly earnings call.

Upwork reported full-year revenue of $769.3 million, which marked a 12% year-over-year gain and an all-time high, according to the earnings release.

The company achieved this gain during a year in which the broader staffing industry saw a 9% decline in revenue, Brown said in her prepared remarks.

During the year, the gross services volume (GSV) from AI-related work grew 60% and the number of clients engaging in AI-related projects grew 42%.

In addition, in 2024, the hourly earnings of freelancers engaged in AI-related work were 44% higher than those of other freelancers, per the release.

AI has been the fastest growing major category on the Upwork platform for several quarters, with clients seeking talent in prompt engineering, AI integration, generative AI modeling, and data labeling and annotation, according to an investor presentation released Wednesday.

During the Q&A portion of the earnings call, Brown said Upwork has grown and “shape-shifted” to meet the emerging demand for AI talent just as it did in the past, when there was newly created demand for social media managers and mobile developers.

“We are also leveraging AI on our platform to underpin the evolution of predictive and delightful conversational customer experiences,” Brown said in her prepared remarks.

Upwork enhanced its platform in April by adding an AI assistant called Uma that performs tasks like creating tailored proposal drafts for freelancers, evaluating candidates for clients, and scoping projects and designing optimal teams of experts for larger clients, according to the earnings release and the presentation.

The firm also acquired AI-native search-as-a-service company Objective, a move it said allowed Upwork to enhance the search and match performance of its platform, strengthen the company’s AI and machine learning teams, and continue to develop new capabilities for Uma.

“As the AI work tide builds, organizations of all sizes are seeking out more flexible talent models that match their needs for new and emerging skills, with partners who integrate cutting edge AI technology and valued human workers seamlessly and at scale to rapidly deliver on their priorities,” Brown said in her remarks.

“At the same time, professionals across geographies, specialties and industries want digitally powered ways of working that give them easy access to more autonomy, flexibility and earning power.”