The Bankruptcy Court of Delaware has approved bidding procedures for four of FTX’s independent solvent subsidiaries in an attempt to generate money to repay the creditors.
In Thursday’s hearing, Judge John Dorsey, currently overseeing FTX’s liquidation, cleared the troubled exchange’s motion to sell four key units – derivatives arm LedgerX, stock-clearing platform Embed, FTX Japan, and FTX Europe. For the uninitiated, FTX Japan and FTX Europe were subject to license and business suspensions in December last year.
- The US Trustee protested the sale of FTX’s assets claiming that valuable information related to the exchange’s bankruptcy could be compromised.
- The latest development comes a month after FTX Trading and its affiliated debtors put its subsidiaries up for auction.
- Bankrupt companies require the court’s permission if the sale of assets is outside the ordinary course of business. As of January 8th, around 117 parties have expressed their willingness to acquire the four units of the bankrupt exchange.
- The court filing, made by Kevin Cofsky, a partner at Perella Weinberg, the investment bank representing FTX US and affiliated firms, read,
“Approximately 117 parties, including various financial and strategic counterparties globally, have expressed interest to the Debtors in a potential purchase of one or more of the Businesses.”
- Cofsky also revealed that the debtors have entered into 59 confidentiality agreements with potential counterparties who have expressed interest in any one or more of the companies.
- So far, no firm agreements were made, but those parties can now access data to allow due diligence, including information regarding the business unit’s operations, finances, and technology.
- As per the filing, nearly 50 parties were interested in the FTX-acquired clearing firm Embed, 56 were eyeing LedgerX, 41 expressed interest in FTX Japan, and 40 were for FTX Europe.
- Earlier this week, a bankruptcy attorney said that FTX located more than $5 billion of cash and liquid assets.