Every quarter for the past several years, Ken Vecchione printed out a spreadsheet comparing the growth of the bank he runs, Western Alliance, with its three principal competitors: First Republic, Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank.And each time, Mr. Vecchione was annoyed because the analysis would show that Western Alliance’s loans and deposits were growing similarly to the others — its total assets tripled in five years — but that its stock price wasn’t soaring as high.“We were, I have to admit, a bit envious of them,” said Mr. Vecchione, who has been chief executive of the Phoenix bank since 2018.Now all three of those competitors are kaput, felled by runs on deposits during the biggest banking …
