FTX Gains Approval to Sell LedgerX, Embed, and Europe, Japan Entities

Monday, 16/01/2023 | 11:08 GMT by Arnab Shome

All of these entities operated independently from the tainted-parent organization.

FTX earlier revealed that more than 110 potential buyers are willing to acquire these businesses.

FTX has received a court's permission to sell CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange LedgerX LLC, the equities -trading platform Embed Technologies, FTX Japan Holdings, and FTX Europe. All of these four businesses ran independently of the now-collapsed parent crypto exchange, FTX International.

FTX Gains Permission to Sell Four Subsidiaries

The court's permission came after the management of FTX management sought authorization to offload the four subsidiaries that were acquired relatively recently. Hence, their operations remained largely independent from the tainted global parent.

According to the court filings, investment bank Perella Weinberg will oversee the sale process of all four FTX subsidiaries. For acquiring Embed, interested parties must submit a non-binding preliminary bid by 18 January. The deadline for LedgerX is 25 January, while for both FTX Japan and FTX Europe the schedule is set for 1 February.

The final deadline for the bidding for Embed is 15 February, LedgerX is 1 March, and 15 March for both FTX Japan and FTX Europe. An earlier court filing by FTX detailed that more than 110 'unsolicited' bidders are already lined up for the four subsidiaries.

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FTX Subsidiaries Facing Regulatory Backlash

The original proposal to sell the four subsidiaries came as they are facing regulatory pressure since the misdeeds of the parent company, which surfaced last month, led to bankruptcy filings. The Japanese regulator issued a business improvement order to FTX Japan and suspended operations of FTX Japan. Additionally, the Cypriot regulator suspended the license of Switzerland-headquartered FTX Europe.

"The longer operations are suspended, the greater the risk to the value of the assets and the risk of a permanent revocation of licenses," an earlier court filing seeking permission to sell the four subsidiaries stated.

Meanwhile, a recent court filing revealed that the liquidators of FTX have recovered around $5 billion in cash, cryptocurrencies, and liquid investments in securities. However, the restructuring team finds navigating the firm's investment on decentralized platforms difficult.

Recently, Sam Bankman-Fried, the Founder and Former CEO of FTX, who allegedly orchestrated the illegal business practices of the crypto exchange, pled "not guilty" to the criminal charges brought against him and is now out on $250 million recognizance bail bold. However, two of his former top associates, the former CEO of Alameda Research, Caroline Ellison, and Alameda and FTX's Co-Founder, Zixiao (Gary) Wang, both pled guilty to criminal charges against them and are cooperating with the prosecutors revealing the internal operations of the collapsed crypto exchange.