Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Writes Down $95M FTX Investment

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has written down its 95 million FTX Investment after the exchange collapsed amid a liquidity crisis.

In a statement, the fund revealed ownership of 0.4% in FTX.com and 0.5% in FTX.US. This is based on its investment in the entities until now. Notably. Ontario Teachers’ invested $75 million in October 2021, followed by another round of investment worth $20 million in January 2022.

0.05% of assets turned to zero

In total, the infusion represented less than 0.05% of Ontario Teachers’ net assets. Now, the ownership will be zero by the end of the year. However, the plan assures that the magnitude of the investment loss relative to its overall net assets will have a limited impact on the Plan.

The fund noted, ” These investments were made through our Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG) platform, alongside a number of global investors, to gain small-scale exposure to an emerging area in the financial technology sector.”

In 2019, the TVG was established to invest in early-stage and growth-stage technology companies. The fund has noted that “not all of the investments in this early-stage asset class perform to expectations.”

FTX under probe

The Securities Commission of The Bahamas noted yesterday that as the exchange remains under investigation, all digital assets of FTX Digital Markets Ltd (FDM) will be transferred to the commission’s digital wallet.

The regulator stated, “Urgent interim regulatory action was necessary to protect the interests of clients and creditors of FDM,”

That said, research firm Elliptic suggests that the regulator’s transfer could be the reason behind the $477 million disappearing from the platform last weekend. Therefore, in this case, the “unauthorized” transfers could be SCB’s safekeeping transfer, which was also acknowledged by the exchange.

Elliptic reveals that FTX lawyers filed an emergency motion for “unauthorized access” on the same day.