Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Writes Off $95M Exposure to FTX

• Investments are made on behalf of 333,000 active and retired educators via the OTPP.
• Last Monday, FTX initiated Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Canada’s third-largest pension fund, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), released a statement on its investment in the defunct FTX cryptocurrency exchange on Thursday. Investments are made on behalf of 333,000 active and retired educators via the OTPP, whose website reveals it has over C$243 billion ($182 billion) in net assets.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan stated:

“Our investment represented less than 0.05% of our total net assets and equated to ownership of 0.4% and 0.5% of FTX International and FTX US, respectively.”

Disappointed With the Outcome

In October of last year, the Ontario Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG) fund invested C$75 million in FTX International and its U.S. business, FTX US, as detailed in the release. Moreover, the fund invested yet again in FTX US around January, investing an additional C$20 million.

The pension plan noted:

“We will be writing down our investment in FTX to zero at our year end … We are disappointed with the outcome of this investment, take all losses seriously and will use this experience to further strengthen our approach.”

Last Monday, FTX initiated Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. John Ray III, a seasoned bankruptcy practitioner who managed the liquidation of Enron, succeeded outgoing CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. Moreover, all of Temasek Holdings, Paradigm, and Sequoia Capital’s stakes in FTX have been written off recently.

Ray stated in a court filing on Thursday:

“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.” 

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