NEW PROVIDENCE, Bahamas, Nov. 22 (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, his parents and senior executives at the failed cryptocurrency exchange have spent the past two years in the U.S. over the past two years, official property records show. The Bahamas bought at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million.
Most of FTX’s purchases were luxury beachfront homes, including seven apartments in an expensive resort community called Albany, which cost nearly $72 million. The properties, purchased by a division of FTX, will be used as “residences for key personnel” of the company, the deeds show. Reuters was unable to determine who lived in the apartments.
Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara, are shown on paperwork for another home with beach access in Old Fort Bay — a gated community that was once a 1700s The site of a British colonial fort built to ward off pirates is scrambled, as lottery. One of the documents, dated June 15, said the property was being used as a “holiday home”.
Asked by Reuters why the couple decided to buy a vacation home in the Bahamas and how to pay for it — cash, a mortgage or a third party such as FTX — the professor’s spokesman said only that Bankmanfried had been trying to sell the property Return to FTX.
“Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have been seeking the return of the deed to the company since prior to the commencement of bankruptcy proceedings and are awaiting further instructions,” the spokesman said, declining to elaborate.
While FTX and its employees are known to have bought real estate in the Bahamas, where it established its headquarters last September, property records seen by Reuters show for the first time the scale of their buying spree and the intended use of some properties. real estate.
FTX, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after clients withdrew heavily, did not respond to a request for comment. Bankman-Fried did not respond to a request for comment.
Bankman-Fried told Reuters he lived in a house with nine other colleagues. For his employees, he says FTX offers free meals and an “Uber-like in-house” service on the island.
The collapse of FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, has left some 1 million creditors facing losses totaling billions of dollars. Bankman-Fried secretly tapped $10 billion in client funds to prop up his trading business, with at least $1 billion in deposits disappearing, according to Reuters.
In a U.S. court filing earlier this month in Delaware bankruptcy court, FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, said he learned that FTX Group company funds were being used “for Employees and consultants purchase homes and other personal items”.
Reuters was unable to determine the source of the funds FTX and its executives used to purchase the properties.
property purchase
Reuters searched property records of the Bahamas Registrar General for FTX, Bankman-Fried, his parents and some of the company’s key executives.
FTX subsidiary FTX Property Holdings Ltd bought 15 properties worth nearly $100 million in 2021 and 2022.
Its most expensive purchase was a $30 million penthouse in Albany, a resort where Tiger Woods hosts an annual golf tournament. Property records for the penthouse, dated March 17, were signed by FTX Property president Ryan Salame and show it was intended to serve as a “key personnel residence”.
Salam did not respond to a request for comment.
Other high-end real estate purchases include three condos at One Cable Beach, a waterfront residence in New Providence. Priced between $950,000 and $2 million, the apartments were bought for residential use by former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh, FTX co-founders Gary Wang and Bankman-Fried, records show.
Singh and Wang did not respond to requests for comment.
Two of FTX Property’s real estate properties are marked for commercial use — an $8.55 million housing complex serving as FTX’s headquarters, and a 4.95-acre parcel of land on the shoreline overlooking turquoise waters that is also intended to be developed into offices Space cryptocurrency exchange.
The FTX headquarters is now unoccupied, with furniture leaning against some of the windows. Its logo has been removed. The $4.5 million land is also vacant.
A security guard said the staff had not returned to the headquarters after leaving earlier this month.
Reporting by Koh Gui Qing; Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Claudia Parsons
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