FTX says it has located more than $5 billion in cash, liquid assets

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FTX Says It Has Located More Than $5 Billion in Cash, Liquid Assets

BY BECKY YERAK | UPDATED JAN 11, 2023 03:59 PM EST

The bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange also said it is hoping to sell additional investment holdings with a book value topping $4.6 billion

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX said it has located more than $5 billion in cash and other liquid assets and is hoping to sell hundreds of additional investment holdings with a book value of more than $4.6 billion.

Those assets are valued as of FTX’s bankruptcy filing in November and don’t include $425 million held by authorities in the Bahamas, company lawyers said on Wednesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del.

FTX lawyers also told the judge overseeing the bankruptcy case that the amount of the shortfall in FTX customer funds isn’t yet clear. The company is working on determining the size of the claims pool and potential recoveries for some 9 million customer accounts it has identified, FTX lawyer Andrew Dietderich said in the court hearing.

Mr. Dietderich said that new FTX management is “building financial statements from the ground up," rather than using previous statements. The company is also “well under way on plans to monetize over 300 other nonstrategic investments, with a book value over $4.6 billion," Mr. Dietderich said.

FTX, affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research and other entities that were controlled by founder Sam Bankman-Fried put more than $5 billion into startup ventures as well as venture firms like Sequoia Capital, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Many of those investments were concentrated in the crypto sector itself.

FTX Chief Executive John J. Ray III has said that some companies in that venture portfolio are