Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund Writes Down Entire Investment in Bankrupt Crypto Exchange FTX Citing ‘Potential Fraud’

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), one of the largest pension plans in the world, is writing down its investment in the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX. “Recent reports suggest potential fraud conducted at FTX which is deeply concerning for all parties,” the plan states.

Major Canadian Pension Plan Writes Down FTX Investment

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), Canada’s third largest pension fund, issued a statement Thursday regarding its investment in the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. The OTPP, which currently has about C$243 billion ($182 billion) in net assets, invests for 333,000 working and retired teachers, its website shows.

The statement explains that the Ontario Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG) fund invested C$75 million in FTX International and its U.S. entity, FTX US, in October last year. In January, the fund made a follow-up investment of C$20 million in FTX US.

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan detailed:

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.

“Recent reports suggest potential fraud conducted at FTX which is deeply concerning for all parties,” the statement adds. “We fully support the efforts of regulators and others to review the risks and causes of failure for this business.”

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.

“The financial loss from this investment will have limited impact on the plan, given its size relative to our total net assets and our strong financial position,” the statement concludes.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last week. Former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried also stepped down and was replaced by John Ray III, a veteran insolvency professional who oversaw the liquidation of Enron. “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,” Ray said in a court filing Thursday.

Recently, the Singapore government’s Temasek Holdings, Paradigm, and Sequoia Capital similarly announced that they are writing down the entire value of their FTX investments.

What do you think about Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan investing in FTX? Let us know in the comments section below.

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