S&C Senior Chair Rodge Cohen was featured in a two-part interview with The Deal, discussing the recent bank failures in light of his critical role helping clients work through previous financial crises, including the New York City bailout of 1975, the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s, the stock market crash of 1987 and the financial crisis in 2008.
Rodge pointed to the collapse of New York’s Franklin National Bank in 1974 as the point at which the collapse of the financial system during the Great Depression began resonating with him. “That [collapse] illustrated the value of getting the banks to work together and the public and private sector to work together,” he said.
Rodge also discussed his work advising commercial banks on the wave of M&A that consolidated the sector from the 1970s to 2008. He described the evolution of state and federal regulation of financial institutions since the 1970s and how he’s worked with clients to navigate a more complex regulatory environment since 2008.
Reflecting on the parallels between the 2008 financial crisis and the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic Bank, Rodge said, “The players may change; the facts are not going to be identical; but there is so much similarity as to what happens.”
Read “Q&A: Rodge Cohen Reflects on Banking Crisis, Consolidation - Part 1 and Part 2.”