Sam Bankman-Fried fighting to keep $450M Robinhood stake in

Sam Bankman-Fried is battling to maintain a $450 million stake in retail inventory Robinhood that FTX’s new boss is attempting to claw again from the indicted crypto huckster, according to court records.

The ousted FTX founder claims he’s entitled to the property listed underneath Emergent Constancy Applied sciences, a holding firm Bankman-Fried registered in Antigua.

The filings launched Thursday in a Delaware chapter court docket present Bankman-Fried is the only real director and majority stakeholder of Emergent.

Nevertheless, new FTX CEO John J. Ray III — who’s searching for to regain billions in investor funds that Bankman-Fried allegedly swindled from them to prop up his hedge fund Alameda Research — argued the stake in Robinhood belongs to FTX, in accordance with the authorized submitting.

The matter is sophisticated additional by the truth that two different collectors — the crypto lending agency BlockFi and FTX creditor Yonatan Ben Shimon — are additionally claiming possession of the Robinhood stake.

In Might, Emergent and Bankman-Fried revealed that it owned a 7.6% stake in Robinhood. In response to SEC filings, Bankman-Fried paid $648 million for greater than 56.3 million shares within the app.

On Friday, shares of Robinhood had been buying and selling at $8, placing the stake’s value at $447 million — a $200 million loss.

FTX, which has been positioned underneath the stewardship of Ray whereas being administered underneath Chapter 11 chapter safety, seeks to freeze any exercise within the shares whereas the authorized battle performs out.

“The debtors are conducting an investigation into the enterprise affairs of the FTX group,” FTX stated within the submitting.

“This investigation to this point signifies that the Robinhood shares are property of the debtors’ estates, held solely nominally by Emergent.”

Final month, BlockFi filed swimsuit in opposition to Bankman-Fried, claiming that Alameda Analysis promised to safe $1 billion in loans that included the Robinhood stake.

BlockFi alleged that Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s on-again, off-again girlfriend who ran Alameda Analysis, made the pledge.

However FTX, which is contesting BlockFi’s declare, stated Ellison had no standing to make such a promise.

“The Robinhood Shares had been included in these pledged property by Alameda’s then-CEO, even supposing the Robinhood Shares had been nominally held by Emergent, as a result of Alameda had then, and continues to have, a property curiosity within the Robinhood Shares,” FTX stated in its court docket submitting.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev advised CNBC earlier this month that he expects the stake in his firm to be tied up in chapter proceedings for the foreseeable future.

“I’m not shocked that it’s one of many extra priceless property they’ve on their stability sheet, as a result of it’s public firm’s inventory,” Tenev told CNBC.

 “We’re simply watching this unfold. And it’s going to be locked up in chapter proceedings — more than likely for a while — and so we’re simply sort of seeing how that performs out.”

Bankman-Fried was freed on $250 million bond on Thursday. He awaits trial on federal charges together with wire fraud and securities fraud.

Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang have pledged responsible to federal costs of fraud. They’ve indicated they are going to cooperate with investigators. The have each been launched on $250,000 bail.