FTX Owes Top 50 Creditors $3.1bn

Bankrupt crypto exchange FTX owes its 50 biggest creditors some $3.1 billion (£2.6bn), according to bankruptcy filings over the weekend, with two creditors owed more than $200m each.

FTX and linked entities owe their single biggest creditor more than $226m, according to filings in Delaware bankruptcy court late on Saturday.

All of the creditors, who were not named, were listed as customers and ten of them have claims of more than $100m each, the filings say.

‘Failure of controls’

The 50 largest claims each amount to $21m or more.

FTX has said in previous filings it has assets and liabilities of at least $10bn each. The company’s lawyers have said the firm could have more than one million creditors.

US firms are required to disclose information about their debts as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

But the disclosure had been delayed as bankruptcy practicioners found diffculty locating reliable information.

Bankruptcy expert John Ray III, who took the helm of the business after the resignation of former chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried, said in earlier filings he had never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information”.

Employee attrition

FTX said it may need to update the creditor list as “investigation[s] continue regarding amounts listed, including payments that may have been made but are not yet reflected on the [company’s] books and records”.

In another Saturday filing FTX said the company had 330 workers worldwide but was experiencing “extraordinary attrition” and asked the court for permission to continue paying remaining employees critical to the bankruptcy proceedings.

The company said in a filing that Ray was billing his time at $1,300 an hour and had been paid a $200,000 retainer fee. The company has retained three new executives to assist with bankruptcy including a chief financial officer.

An initial court hearing is scheduled for Tuesday morning in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware.