PacWest shares tumble 20% after regional bank says deposits fell 9.5% last week

Shares of PacWest were under pressure once again on Thursday after the struggling regional bank said that deposit outflows resumed in the first week of May.

The stock was down 20% in premarket trading. Shares of PacWest were already down 40% this month and more than 70% for the year.

The bank said in a securities filing on Thursday that its deposits declined 9.5% during the week of May 5. PacWest said that the majority of those outflows came after media reports that said the bank was exploring strategic options.

The bank also said that it was able to fund those withdrawals with available liquidity. PacWest said it now has $15 billion of available liquidity compared to $5.2 billion in uninsured deposits.

The update marks a change from May 4, when PacWest said that it was not experiencing “out-of-the-ordinary deposit flows” and that total deposits had increased since the end of March.

During the first quarter, PacWest’s total deposits declined 16.9%, and the bank said it would use strategic asset sales to reshape its balance sheet.

Other regional bank stocks were also under pressure in premarket trading, with Western Alliance falling more than 6% and Zions Bancorp. falling 2.7%. The SPDR S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) was down 1.9%.

The regional banking sector has been under pressure since early March, when concern about the impact of higher interests to a run on deposits at Silicon Valley Bank, which was seized by regulators. Signature Bank soon followed, and then First Republic was seized and sold to JPMorgan before the market opened on May 1.