Argo Blockchain Agrees to Sell Helios Facility to Galaxy Digital for $65M

One of the many struggling crypto mining companies – Argo Blockchain – will try to avoid bankruptcy by selling its Helios facility to Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital.

The deal will be worth $65 million and aims to reduce the firm’s overall debts.

The Deal

Argo made the announcement earlier on December 28, informing that it will also refinance asset-backed loans with a new one from Galaxy Digital worth $35 million with an initial term of 36 months. By adding the sale of Helios for $65 million, the mining company said this will reduce its overall indebtedness by $41 million.

The transactions are expected to be completed by the end of the day. Galaxy has also agreed to host the fleet of Bitmain S19J Pros at Helios, while Argo will maintain ownership of all machines. They will serve as the new loan’s collateral.

“Argo will maintain ownership of its fleet of Bitcoin mining machines, which represents approximately 2.5 EH/s of total hashrate capacity. Our miners currently operating at Helios will continue to be hosted there by Galaxy, which is a high-quality, institutional participant in the Bitcoin mining space.” – said the firm’s Chief Executive, Peter Wall.

Argo said the cash flow from the deal will allow it to “repay all existing indebtedness, prepayment interest, and other fees of approximately $84 million and $1 million, owed to NYDIG ABL LLC and North Mill Commercial Finance, LLC, respectively.”

The mining company added that only a portion of its Canadian-based operations will be affected by the deal, including “mining machines and other assets located in Quebec” to be used as collateral for the asset-backed loan.

Argo’s Troubles

With the start of the bitcoin bear market earlier this year, many miners began to feel the pain almost immediately, having to sell more BTC than they mine to cover the rising costs. The rapidly increasing hash rate and difficulty didn’t help them either.

Argo was among those hit hard, with stock prices falling by over 50% after it announced a negative cash flow for a few consecutive quarters. The company failed to outline its Q4 results in today’s statement because the UK FCA “requires semi-annual reporting of financial results,” and Argo is “designated by the SEC as a foreign private issuer and is required to comply with regulatory filing requirements in its home market.”

Nevertheless, Argo said its stocks should open for trading on Nasdaq today after the suspension request yesterday.