Roku held 26% of cash with failed Silicon Valley Bank

Roku held about 26% of its cash in Silicon Valley Bank Financial (SVB), whose high-profile failure has sent shockwaves through the financial world over the weekend.

Roku held approximately US$487 million at the bank. In an 8-K filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that it was aware that SVB had gone into receivership, and that its deposits with the bank were “largely uninsured”.

“At this time, the Company does not know to what extent the Company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB,” Roku said.

Roku however said that “notwithstanding the closure of SVB, the company continues to believe that its existing cash and cash equivalents balance and cash flow from operations will be sufficient to meet its working capital, capital expenditures, and material cash requirements from known contractual obligations for the next twelve months and beyond.”

The filing was made ahead of the intervention of the US Federal Reserve, which on Sunday announced a new lending facility aimed at stopping the bank’s failure from spreading contagion in the financial markets.

The lending programme is aimed at preventing institutions needing to sell securities at a time of financial stress and would be sufficient cover all uninsured deposits, according to the Fed.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has been appointed as receiver of SVB by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, earlier said that all insured depositors will have full access to their deposits today, but that uninsured depositors will receive a receivership certificate for the remaining amount of their uninsured funds.

It had said that as the FDIC sells the assets of SVB, future dividend payments may be made to uninsured depositors.

In other Roku news the company last week announced the features and availability of its new Roku Select and Plus Series TVs. Available in 11 models ranging from 24” to 75”, Roku-branded HD and 4K TVs are the first to be both designed and made by Roku,

The TVs will be sold exclusively through Best Buy in the US. Features include automatic brightness, wireless sound expandability, Bluetooth Private Listening and Roku’s Voice Remote Pro.