The FTX bankruptcy estate has reached a deal to sell two-thirds of its stake in AI startup Anthropic for more than twice the value Sam Bankman-Fried acquired the shares for in 2021.
FTX has struck a deal to sell two thirds of its stake in Anthropic for $884 million.
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Posted March 26, 2024 at 2:59 am EST.
FTX’s bankruptcy estate will sell the majority of its stake in Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic, after striking a deal with dozens of institutional buyers that include Wall Street majors like Jane Street and funds managed by Fidelity.
According to court documents filed on Friday, FTX reached a deal to sell two thirds of its stake in Anthropic for $884 million – an implied equity value that is over two times greater than what former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried acquired the stake for.
In 2021, Bankman-Fried bought an 8% stake in Anthropic for $500 million through the FTX subsidiary Clifton Bay, meaning the full value of FTX’s stake in the firm is now valued at more than $1 billion.
The biggest chunk of FTX’s Anthropic stake will go to ATIC Third International Investment Co, an enterprise aligned with United Arab Emirates-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, which is buying close to $500 million worth of shares.
The second-largest buyer is quantitative trading firm Jane Street, the former workplace of Bankman-Fried and Alameda Research’s Caroline Ellison before FTX was founded. Jane Street will buy nearly $100 million in shares, and the firm’s head of quantitative research Craig Falls will personally buy $20 million worth of shares.
Other notable buyers include funds managed by Fidelity Investments, which are collectively acquiring $44 million of FTX’s Anthropic stake, venture firm HOF Capital and the Ford Foundation.
For anyone interested in the FTX estate sale of its Anthropic shares. SBF bought 8% of Anthropic for $500m (~$6.3b equity value). The estate just sold 2/3 of it’s stake for $884m, which implies an equity value for Anthropic of ~$16.6b; a 2.6x trade (w/ 1.8x realized on this… pic.twitter.com/xtSg3Qv3ev
— Omar (🏌️♂️,⛳️) (@TheOneandOmsy) March 25, 2024
In February, Judge John Dorsey approved FTX’s proposed sale of its stake in Anthropic, with the bankruptcy estate saying it plans to direct the proceeds from the sale towards creditor recoveries.
FTX’s native token FTT surged 15% after news of the deal to sell Anthropic was made public on Monday, and is currently trading at around $2.20, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a letter in October to block Bankman-Fried’s legal team from bringing up the value of Anthropic shares in court during trial, saying that the funds used for the investment came from FTX customers and was thus irrelevant to the trial. In a letter to the court last week arguing against the government’s proposed 50-year sentence for Bankman-Fried, his lawyers said that the “money has always been available” and FTX has never encountered any losses.
