FTX did not hold back on company expenses in the Bahamas, according to court documents.
FTX’s Bahamian company spent a staggering amount of money on luxury hotels and accommodation, flights, and food just nine months before the exchange’s collapse, court filings revealed.
In bankruptcy court documents reviewed by Business Insider, FTX Digital Markets went through $40 million between January to September 2022, just two months before the company filed for bankruptcy citing liquidity issues.
More than $15 million went on luxury hotels and accommodation, with $5.8 million of that at one resort — the Albany Hotel. This luxury resort is where Sam Bankman-Fried lived in his $30 million penthouse until his arrest, the report added.
Around $3.6 million went on the Grand Hyatt, a four-star hotel that hosted British royalty in March 2022. There was also $800,000 spent at the five-star Rosewood resort.
Furthermore, almost $7 million was spent on meals and entertainment with around half of that going on catering services, according to the documents. Nearly $4 million was spent on flights and over $500,000 was spent on postage and delivery.
FTX even made a private deal with an air carrier to fly their Amazon orders from a Miami depot since the e-commerce giant didn’t deliver to the Bahamas, according to London’s Financial Times.
The FT added that the firm also provided Bahamas staff with a “full suite of cars and gas covered for all employees [and] unlimited, full expense covered trips to any office globally.”
In Dec. 2022, a former employee revealed the extent of the company’s excessive luxury expenditures saying it was “cult-like.” “The entire operation was iconically and moronically inefficient,” she said at the time.
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FTX also made numerous donations to local charities and organizations in the Bahamas.
There has been speculation that some of these donations may have to be returned as the Caribbean island nation tries to move on, according to a Jan. 8 report in local media.
Bankman-Fried entered a plea of not guilty to eight criminal charges in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York on Jan. 3.