According to a document filed in the Delaware bankruptcy court, the Bahamian entity of FTX has spent almost $40 Million on hotels, food, and travel in recent 9 months. The lawyers pointed out in the court filing that the FTX’s Bahamian company, FTX Digital Markets, had no customer revenue still spent luxuriously in the hotels, entertainments, and flights.
According to the Court filings, from last January to September, the company has spent $15.4 Million on luxurious hotels and accommodation. And the major chunk of this sum i.e. around $5.8 Million was spent at the Albany Hotel — the oceanside resort with its own yacht marina and golf course.
However, the Co-Founder and former CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, lived in a $30 Million penthouse in Albany before he got arrested in the Bahamas last month.
On the other hand, last year one of Albany’s founders told Fortune that in the peak season, accommodation at their resort can go up to $60,000 per night.
Meanwhile, FTX spent $3.6 Million on the Grand Hyatt — a 4 star hotel, where the cheapest room costs $369 a night. Just in March 2022, FTX spent $28,954 at this hotel. And at Rosewood — a five star hotel, FTX has spent $800,000, where one night costs at least $1,100.
Growjo —- a tech-tracking site, reported before the bankruptcy filing of FTX, that it had around 1,310 employees. Which means an average of around $12,000 per staff member was spent on hotels across the nine months.
Although a media once reported that Alameda — FTX’s sister company, owes $55,000 to the Margaritaville beach resort founded by singer Jimmy Buffett. Resort staff told Bloomberg that FTX employees stayed in 20 suites for several months. They also had plans to go out on the town together.
The filings also indicated that FTX spent $6.9 Million on “foods and entertainment.” And half of that was spent on just catering services, with the largest amount, $1.4 Million, spent on catering at the Hyatt. FTX also spent almost $1 Million with a Nassau-based caterer called Six Stars Catering. The calculation of the rest of the money was still unclear.
On flights, $3.9 Million was spent, with more than $500,000 for “postage and delivery.” That could be related to a Financial Times report as FTX hired private planes to fly Amazon packages from Miami because it didn’t deliver to the Bahamas.
According to CNBC, on January 3rd, 2023, the Manhattan U.S. The Attorney’s Office created an FTX task Force to trace and recover victim’s assets of FTX’s collapse.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2023/01/09/a-court-filing-on-the-expenditure-of-ftx-in-recent-9-months/