FTX seeking to auction its functioning businesses including LedgerX

• FTX lawyers are seeking permission from a US bankruptcy court to be allowed to sell their businesses.
• The businesses that FTX seek to auction were only acquired recently.
• FTX wants to auction the businesses before they lose too much value or have their licenses permanently revoked.

FTX lawyers have filed for permission from a US bankruptcy court to be allowed to auction four of its active businesses. According to the filing made on December 15, FTX seeks to auction its Japanese and European FTX branches, stock-clearing platform Embed, and recently acquired derivatives exchange LedgerX.

According to the lawyers, the mentioned businesses have been under pressure since the collapse of FTX which is the main reason they seek auctioning. They note:

“The longer operations are suspended, the greater the risk to the value of the assets and the risk of a permanent revocation of licenses.”

FTX Japan and FTX Europe currently suspended

FTX Europe currently has its licenses and operations suspended while FTX Japan is currently under business suspension and improvement orders.

Besides the businesses’ suspensions, the lawyers argue that the businesses have lost customers and employees since FTX filed for bankruptcy. The lawyers also argue that selling the businesses now would enable them to resume operations and maximize value for the FTX estate.

The lawyers also point out that the four businesses were recently acquired by FTX and had been operating relatively independently of FTX which would make their auction process less complicated.

Set auction dates

If their prayers were to be allowed by the US court, the auctioning of the businesses would start on February 21 2023 assuming there is more than one bidder.

Embed would be the first to be auctioned on February 21, followed by Ledger which would be auctioned on March 7. FTX Japan and FTX Europe would both be auctioned on March 21.