Silicon Valley Bank chief sold $5.5m in stock two weeks before collapse

However, critics say the prearranged share-sale plans, called 10b5-1 plans, have significant loopholes, including that they lack mandatory cooling-off periods.

“While Becker may not have anticipated the bank run on Jan. 26 when he adopted the plan, the capital raise is material,” said Dan Taylor, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who studies corporate trading disclosures.

“If they were in discussion for a capital raise at the time the plan was adopted, that is highly problematic.”

In December, the SEC finalised new rules that would mandate at least a 90-day cooling-off period for most executive trading plans, meaning that they can’t make trades on a new schedule for three months after they take hold.

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Executives are required to start complying with those rules on April 1.

Meanwhile, a Fed spokesman confirmed that Becker is no longer a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

The change was effective on Friday, the same day SVB-owned Silicon Valley Bank failed and was taken over by state and federal regulators. He became a Class A director of the San Francisco Fed’s head office board in 2019 and his departure leaves a vacant seat on the nine-member board.

Bloomberg, AP