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Major crypto brokerage firm Voyager Digital Ltd. said on Sunday that a joint offer from crypto exchange FTX US and Alameda Ventures, both owned by crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, set to rescue the firm from insolvency is a harmful “low-ball bid” that will disrupt its bankruptcy process.
Voyager wrote that the proposal would not maximize value for its customers or the company in what the firm posited was “a low-ball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue,” in a document filed in the Southern District of New York on Sunday night.
Under the proposal published in a press release on Friday, FTX said that it would partially bail out Voyager through the purchase of its assets by Alameda, except for the loans to the bankrupt hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. FTX would then offer a share of some cash value from the bailouts to customers who would make accounts on FTX.
Voyager said in its court filing that it believes the bid from FTX has been “made in contravention of the bidding procedures” and “was designed to generate publicity rather than value for Voyager’s customers.”
For its part, Voyager said that it would entertain any “serious proposal” but does not believe that FTX is doing this.
“Hopefully customers understand that public dissemination of proposals that subvert a coordinated, confidential, competitive bidding process can have the effect of chilling bidding,” Voyager’s lawyers wrote in the filing. “[Alameda and FTX’s] actions are not value maximizing.”
The issues that Voyager said that it has with the FTX proposal include that it will not potentially make customers whole, unlike other possible restructuring plans that Voyager has suggested, it fails to take into account tax implications of converting cryptocurrency into U.S. dollars and burdens customers by pushing them onto the FTX platform.
“We submitted what we think is a generous proposal,” Bankman-Fried said in an emailed comment to Bloomberg. “It appears that Voyager’s consultants are attempting to stall out the process, increasing their fees. We feel for the customers who have lost significant funds and are waiting to receive those that remain.”
Voyager Digital filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month after revealing it had become insolvent in the wake of the collapse of the crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital and the default of a $650 million loan to the company. Weeks before, Voyager received a $200 million revolving line of credit from Alameda.
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