First Citizens BancShares Inc. will retire the Silicon Valley Bank name three years after it acquired the go-to bank for startups in a government-orchestrated deal.

The Raleigh, North Carolina-based regional bank will rename its Silicon Valley Bank division into two units, to be called First Citizens Innovation Banking and First Citizens Fund Banking, in the fourth quarter, according to a statement Thursday. CIT Commercial Services, a provider of working-capital financing taken over as part of the 2022 acquisition of CIT Group Inc., and Silicon Valley Bank Wine will both get First Citizens branding as well.

“We’ve taken advantage of this time to actually pull all these items together and it makes it more important for us today to present that under a single brand,” First Citizens Chief Executive Officer Frank Holding Jr. said in an interview.

First Citizens folded Silicon Valley Bank’s financial results into its commercial bank in the fourth quarter of last year, no longer reporting it as a separate operating segment. The acquisition was an unplanned opportunity for First Citizens, coming after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in early 2023 amid a fatal mix of rapidly rising interest rates and fear-driven bank runs.

The merging of brands following bank deals often moves much quicker. JPMorgan Chase & Co. largely finished its integration of First Republic Bank in not much more than a year of its acquisition of the failed lender. First Citizens intentionally delayed the integration of Silicon Valley Bank because, in 2023, deposit losses at Silicon Valley Bank lingered, and First Citizens wanted to focus on stabilizing that.

Also, First Citizens was a new name to Silicon Valley Bank’s core customer base in the technology industry, so the delay gave the lender time to educate clients about the change. First Citizens was unfamiliar to even Marc Cadieux, who joined Silicon Valley Bank in 1992 and has been leading the unit within First Citizens. He knew little about First Citizens when it was revealed as a bidder, and had to look up its website.

After completing the deal, First Citizens’ first goal was to get bankers working with their clients in a bid to stabilize the loss of deposits, rather than worry about integration, Cadieux said.

“First Citizens was that rare acquirer who understood all of that from Day One,” he said in an interview.

The Silicon Valley Bank unit now accounts for about 30% of First Citizens’ total loans. Operating under a more diversified institution has helped Silicon Valley Bank rethink its business as companies stay private longer and adapt to disruptions caused by the rise of artificial intelligence, Cadieux said.

First Citizens now believes a single brand will underscore the bank’s commitment to the innovation economy and positions the company for future organic — and inorganic — growth, Holding said.

“We are excited about having this unified platform to show clients for organic growth and the integrated growth,” he said. “If we see an opportunity to build on that industry expertise or specialization for either a product or a service, then we have the platform to build that into.”

Read More: First Citizens, Buyer of Collapsed SVB, Weighs Another Target

— By Yizhu Wang (Bloomberg News)