FTX: Temasek, a Singaporean state fund, lowers salaries following a bad investment

In the United States, founder and CEO of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried gives a testimony before the House Financial Servic...

The pay of employees responsible for Temasek Holdings' investment in the defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX has reportedly been reduced, according to the Singaporean government-owned investment company.

The fund's $275 million (£222 point 8 million) investment in FTX was fully written off in November.

Authorities have charged former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried with planning an "epic" fraud that could cost investors billions of dollars.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has entered a not-guilty plea to the accusations.

In a statement released by Temasek on Monday, the company stated that the investment team and senior management, who are ultimately in charge of the investment decisions made, "took collective accountability and had their compensation reduced.".

The sovereign wealth fund added that it was "disappointed with the result of our investment, and the negative impact on our reputation. ".

Temasek omitted to say how much salaries were cut.

Between October 2021 and January 2022, it had invested $210 million in FTX, followed by an additional $65 million.

The state-owned fund claimed in 2017 that it had studied the cryptocurrency exchange for eight months prior to making those investments. Examining an audited financial statement was part of this, and the results "showed it to be profitable.". ".

Temasek had investments totaling more than S$403 billion ($298 billion; £241 billion) as of March 2022, making the money it had invested in the cryptocurrency platform a small portion of those.

Temasek's losses in FTX, according to Singapore's deputy prime minister Lawrence Wong, did harm to the reputation of the fund, he claimed in December.

The fact that other top international institutional investors, including BlackRock and Sequoia Capital, invested in FTX, said Mr. Wong, who is also the nation's finance minister, "does not mitigate this.".

Sovereign wealth funds act as a nation's savings account and typically invest in stocks, foreign exchange, real estate, and other assets.

FTX, which was worth $32 billion a year ago, filed for bankruptcy protection in November. An estimated $8 billion in customer funds went missing, according to estimates.

Mr. Bankman-Fried, who co-founded FTX in 2019, was one of the most well-known individuals in the cryptocurrency sector. He was well-known for his political connections, celebrity endorsements, and bailouts of other faltering businesses.

Federal law enforcement officials in the US have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with stealing billions of dollars from FTX users to settle debts at his other company, Alameda Research, and for other investments.

Eight criminal charges, including wire fraud, money laundering, and violations related to campaign finance, were announced by the prosecution in December against Mr. Bankman-Fried. In March, he was hit with five more accusations. Additionally, Mr. Bankman-Fried is the target of complaints from financial regulators.

In relation to their alleged roles in the company's demise, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda, have also been charged.

In the Bahamas, where Mr. Bankman-Fried resided and FTX had its headquarters, he was detained in December.

Just a few days before being arrested, he said in an interview with BBC News: "I didn't intend to commit fraud. I don't believe I was dishonest. All of this was not what I wanted to happen. Definitely not near as capable as I had thought.

. "

Source link

You've successfully subscribed to Webosor
Great! Next, complete checkout to get full access to all premium content.
Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.
Unable to sign you in. Please try again.
Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.
Error! Stripe checkout failed.
Success! Your billing info is updated.
Billing info update failed.