Robinhood strikes deal with U.S. Marshals Service to buy back shares confiscated from Sam Bankman-Fried
Date: 2023-09-03 Author: Karina Ziganova Categories: BLOCKCHAIN, BUSINESS
The Federal Court for the Southern District of New York has agreed that Robinhood's offer to buy Sam Bankman-Freed's shares from the United States Marshals Service (USMS) will be accepted.
Robinhood will eventually receive permission to buy the shares that Bankman-Fried's Emergent Fidelity Technologies seized from him for $605.7 million, the company said in a press release.
As a result of filing for bankruptcy protection last year, FTX and Emergent have taken Bankman-Freed's Robinhood stock into safekeeping with the US government. Robinhood hinted at its intention to buy its stake back in February.
The use of cash, as well as stocks and cryptocurrencies.
According to the decision, Robinhood will repurchase 55.3 million shares at $10.96 each using corporate funds from its balance sheet - about 6 billion in the latest quarterly report and more than 1 billion cash as of early this year from reserves.
Bankman-Fried, who previously held a 7.6% stake in Robinhood, has not expressed any intention to take control of the trading platform. He managed to ignite enthusiasm for Robinhood's business prospects by hinting at potential partnerships with the platform. FTX's sudden bankruptcy resulted in the forfeiture and dissolution of his $26 billion fortune.
The creator of FTX was interested in retaining ownership of the $450 million in Robinhood shares. He mercilessly challenged the bankrupt exchange's "legal claims" on the assets, while singing about how he and Gary Wang were solely the primary shareholders, apart from Alameda Research or any other entities indebted to FTX's bankruptcy.
Robinhood has shown its forte in the cryptocurrency market. Her major holdings are in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). According to Arkham Intelligence reports, Robinhood holds the fifth largest Ethereum wallet, with $2.54 billion in ETH and over 100 RC-20 tokens, totaling around $177 million.
The trading app company owns the third largest bitcoin wallet in the world with around $3 billion in BTC.
