Running of the Banks
A new bake shop opened in Central, Hong Kong. People went wild for it. Without any social media buzz or influencer promotion, its popularity ballooned. Soon a line ran out the door and down the block and right past the entrance of a sleepy bank next door.
A jittery passerby mistook the line at the bakery for a line at the bank. Headlines of bank closures flashed through their mind. They thought it was a run on their bank. They panicked, went in and pulled their deposits out. They told friends and relatives and soon those folks pulled their money too – just to be safe. Word spread. Others joined the frenzy. The bank ran out of cash to meet its customers’ demands and, in the end, went under, undone by the popular croissants next door.
This story… is an urban legend. It allegedly happened in Hong Kong in the 80s. I couldn’t find corroborating evidence, just retellings of retellings. But the story isn’t much different than a VC partner on a sleepy Thursday afternoon seeing some off-hand concern in their group chat about Silicon Valley Bank and its ability to meet all its customers’ demands, taking their deposits out and encouraging their investments and colleagues to do the same. This is, more or less, what actually happened to SVB and set off the current spate of bank troubles. Bank runs can be pretty random, but always have an ingredient of bad behavior.
A Kiss is Not a Contract
LCM wasn’t a depositor or investor in SVB, but the customer exodus from Silicon Valley Bank (and Signature Bank and Credit Suisse and First Republic…) that led to its downfall highlights one reason LCM emphasizes the quality of its investments’ customer relationships. SVB had loyal customers, which are great. Loyal customers feature in many companies that have been great investments of history – Lindt Chocolate and CocaCola come to mind. Loyal customers are certainly preferable to disloyal customers, but, as was the case for SVB, incentives can change, behavior can change and loyalty can evaporate really quickly, even if it harms those same customers in the long-run.
So, does LCM prefer that its portfolio companies have loyal customers? Sure. Does it also prefer that loyalty to be backed-up by legally enforceable contracts, so they can’t decide on a sleepy Thursday afternoon to up and leave? Also, “Yes.” LCM has spent a lot of energy preaching the importance of customer contracts in these letters lately for this reason.
These traits don’t show up in every LCM investment and not in the same measures when they do. But their presence contributes to stability in the businesses that LCM can rely on to evaluate investments.
When customer behavior is contractual or enforceable, LCM can spend more attention on investor behavior. Investors are, mostly, people and also sometimes prone to bad behavior, like those SVB depositors. Some of the best investment opportunities arise when investors behave at their worst.