By Charlie Conchie
Collapsed crypto exchange FTX has revealed it owes its 50 biggest creditors nearly $3.1bn, as it presses ahead with bankruptcy proceedings in the US.
The crypto bourse, formerly run by disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried, said it owes around $1.45bn to its top 10 creditors alone, in court filings published yesterday, seen by Reuters.
FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two weeks ago and has left around one million customers and investors facing down billions of dollars of losses.
John Ray III, who previously oversaw the bankruptcy proceedings of energy giant Enron, has been parachuted into oversee its winding-up and described it as the worst instance of corporate mismanagement he had seen.
“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” he wrote in a filing with the Delaware bankruptcy court last week.
Under Ray, the firm has launched a strategic review of its sprawling global assets and is preparing for the sale or reorganisation of some businesses, in a bid to “begin to maximise recoverable value for stakeholders.”
Ray said that some of the firms under FTX’s umbrella “have solvent balance sheets, responsible management and valuable franchises”.
The implosion of the firm has sent shockwaves through the cryptocurrency market and sparked fears of contagion across the industry.
Crypto lender Genesis has been among the biggest firms caught up in the fallout and last week suspended withdrawals from its website. Bosses at Genesis are reportedly scrambling to raise a $1bn loan from investors, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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