Around 117 Parties Interested in Buying FTX Units, Court Documents Show

Around 117 parties have expressed an interest in buying units of FTX, a legal filing posted Sunday said, as a deadline for initial bids approaches.

While the crypto company’s bankruptcy case could take years, the estate has prioritized the sale of LedgerX, FTX Japan, FTX Europe and stock-clearing platform Embed, arguing they are the easiest to separate and have a risk of losing value if not sold quickly.

As of Sunday, “approximately 117 parties, including various financial and strategic counterparties globally, have expressed interest to the debtors [FTX] in a potential purchase of one or more of the businesses,” said a legal declaration by Kevin Cofsky, a partner at Perella Weinberg, the investment bank hired by FTX Group to represent the collapsed crypto company.

FTX has entered into 59 confidentiality agreements so far, Cofsky said. LedgerX, a derivatives arm of FTX US and one of the few companies in the empire to remain solvent, leads the pack with 56 expressions of interest.

The U.S. Trustee, a branch of the Department of Justice (DOJ) responsible for bankruptcy cases, protested on Saturday that the deal would need to safeguard user privacy and that there should be no sale of potentially valuable assets where there were serious allegations of wrongdoing.

In a reply posted Sunday, FTX said it wouldn’t sell off any claims linked to Sam Bankman-Fried, Gary Wang, Nishad Singh, Caroline Ellison or their families, given allegations made against those former senior executives by the DOJ, alongside securities and commodity regulators.

The deadline for submitting initial bids for the four companies are set to expire between Jan. 18 and Feb. 1. But, in a further Sunday filing, a committee representing FTX’s creditors said they “cautiously agree” to proceed with the sale, but added it couldn’t see the case to rush.

Read more: Embattled Crypto Firm FTX Wants to Sell Its Functioning Units, Including LedgerX