View of the entrance to the condominium complex ONE Cable Beach, a beachfront residence in New Providence, Bahamas, November 18, 2022. [Source: Reuters]

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, his parents and senior executives of the failed cryptocurrency exchange bought at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years.

Separately, attorneys for FTX said on Tuesday that one of the company’s units spent $300 million in the Bahamas buying homes and vacation properties for its senior staff, and that FTX was run as a “personal fiefdom” of Bankman-Fried. No further details were given.

Most of FTX’s purchases registered in the documents seen by Reuters were luxury beachfront homes, including seven condominiums in an expensive resort community called Albany, costing almost $72 million. The deeds show these properties, bought by a unit of FTX, were to be used as “residence for key personnel” of the company. Reuters could not determine who lived in the apartments.

The documents for another home with beach access in Old Fort Bay — a gated community that was once home to a British colonial fort built in the 1700s to protect against pirates — show Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford University law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, as signatories. The property, one of the documents dated June 15 said, is for use as a “vacation home.”

When asked by Reuters why the couple decided to buy a vacation home in the Bahamas and how it was paid for — whether in cash, with a mortgage or by a third party such as FTX — a spokesman for the professors said only that Bankman and Fried had been trying to return the property to FTX.

“Since before the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have been seeking to return the deed to the company and are awaiting further instructions,” the spokesperson said, declining to elaborate.

4 minute readNovember 23, 20226:51 AM GMT+12Last Updated 6 hours ago
Bankman-Fried’s FTX, senior staff, parents bought Bahamas property worth $300 mln
By Koh Gui Qing
View of the entrance to the condominium complex ONE Cable Beach, in Bahamas

[1/5] View of the entrance to the condominium complex ONE Cable Beach, a beachfront residence in New Providence, Bahamas, November 18, 2022. REUTERS/Koh Gui Qing

FTX unit bought 7 condos in high-end resort for “key personnel”
Bankman-Fried’s parents named owners of $16.4 mln vacation home
Bankman and Fried tell Reuters: Seeking to return deed to FTX
NEW PROVIDENCE, Bahamas, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, his parents and senior executives of the failed cryptocurrency exchange bought at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years, official property records show.

Separately, attorneys for FTX said on Tuesday that one of the company’s units spent $300 million in the Bahamas buying homes and vacation properties for its senior staff, and that FTX was run as a “personal fiefdom” of Bankman-Fried. No further details were given. read more

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Most of FTX’s purchases registered in the documents seen by Reuters were luxury beachfront homes, including seven condominiums in an expensive resort community called Albany, costing almost $72 million. The deeds show these properties, bought by a unit of FTX, were to be used as “residence for key personnel” of the company. Reuters could not determine who lived in the apartments.

The documents for another home with beach access in Old Fort Bay — a gated community that was once home to a British colonial fort built in the 1700s to protect against pirates — show Bankman-Fried’s parents, Stanford University law professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, as signatories. The property, one of the documents dated June 15 said, is for use as a “vacation home.”

When asked by Reuters why the couple decided to buy a vacation home in the Bahamas and how it was paid for — whether in cash, with a mortgage or by a third party such as FTX — a spokesman for the professors said only that Bankman and Fried had been trying to return the property to FTX.

“Since before the bankruptcy proceedings, Mr. Bankman and Ms. Fried have been seeking to return the deed to the company and are awaiting further instructions,” the spokesperson said, declining to elaborate.

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While it is known that FTX and its employees bought real estate in the Bahamas, where it established its headquarters in September last year, the property records seen by Reuters show for the first time the scale of their buying spree and the intended use of some of the real estate.

FTX, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this month after a rush of customer withdrawals, did not respond to a request for comment. Bankman-Fried did not respond to requests for comment.

Bankman-Fried has told Reuters he lived in a house with nine other colleagues. For his employees, he said FTX provided free meals and an “in-house Uber-like” service around the island.

The collapse of FTX, one of the world’s largest crypto currency exchanges, has left an estimated 1 million creditors facing losses totalling billions of dollars. Reuters has reported Bankman-Fried secretly used $10 billion in customer funds to prop up his trading business, and that at least $1 billion of those deposits had vanished.

In a U.S. court filing with the District of Delaware bankruptcy court earlier this month, John Ray, FTX’s new chief executive, said he understood that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to “purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors.”

Reuters could not determine the source of funds that FTX and its executives used to buy these properties.