Skybridge Capital Wants to Buy the Shares it Sold to FTX: Report
- Anthony Scaramucci confirmed that his firm, Skybridge Capital, aims to buy back the shares it sold to FTX in 2022.
- FTX Ventures, the venture arm of the troubled crypto exchange, purchased a 30% stake in the investment management firm.
- Scaramucci stated that “it’s very clear now that there was fraud” and added that “we have to let the legal system determine all of those things.”
There are many crypto firms that blame the former billion-dollar crypto exchange, FTX, and its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, for their losses and the loss of faith of investors in the crypto ecosystem. However, in 2022, the exchange tried to expand rapidly and even purchased shares of SkyBridge Capital, an investment management firm founded by Anthony Scaramucci.
Scaramucci, an American financier who briefly served as the White House Director of Communications from July 21 to July 31, 2017, confirmed the same, as per a report from CNBC. The executive confirmed to CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal that Skybridge Capital might buyback the shares it sold to FTX since the exchange is now worth nothing and is in billions of dollars’ worth of debt.
“We’re waiting for the clearance from the bankruptcy people, the lawyers, and the investment bankers to figure out exactly what we’re going to be buying back, and when,” he said, adding it is unlikely for the situation to be resolved “until probably the end of the first half of this year.”
Back in the month of November, when FTX filed for bankruptcy, the price of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency crashed significantly as Bitcoin dropped from around the $20,000 price region to the $15,000 price level, which many expect to be the bottom of the current bearish cycle.
Additionally, as earlier reported by Bitnation, FTX Ventures, the venture arm of the troubled crypto exchange, purchased a 30% stake in the investment management firm, which manages around $2.5 billion, including $800 million in digital assets. Skybridge confirmed at the time of the purchase that it would use $40 million, a portion of the stake proceeds, to purchase cryptocurrency assets and hold them on its balance sheet.
“We look forward to collaborating closely with SkyBridge on its crypto investment activity and also working alongside them on promising non-crypto-related investments,” Bankman-Fried stated at that time.
Scaramucci stated that “it’s very clear now that there was fraud” and added that “we have to let the legal system determine all of those things.” Interestingly, it was believed that SBF and Scaramucci were close friends, but it seems that this wasn’t the case.
It is crucial to note that the entire FTX has come crumbling down, and there is no chance of its revival now. Even Miami-Dade County has decided to part ways with the exchange and is now removing the exchange’s symbols and signs from the Heat Arena. However, an interesting fact is that the author of some of the most successful books like “Moneyball,” “The Big Short,” and “The Blind Side,” Michael Lewis, has captured the opportunity to write a book on the implosion of the exchange.