Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and CEO of FTX, has acquired a 7.6% stake – about 56 million shares worth around $648 million – in Robinhood. The financial services company’s shares shot up 25% from the day before.
Bankman-Fried highlighted that FTX was not involved in the deal but it would participate in the next round of upcoming mergers and acquisitions. The acquisition was done through Emergent Fidelity Technologies, which is a company incorporated in Antigua and Barbuda. It should be noted that the FTX boss is a majority owner of Emergent.
Robinhood, in a tweet, said the platform is creating a multi-generational company where customers can build wealth for their generations. It sees the deal with Bankman-Fried as an “attractive investment”. Robinhood has the best customer base, is introducing new products, and has a great team to deliver the same. In the first quarter, Robinhood reported a net loss of $392 million. Its net revenues in the first three months of 2022 were $299 million.
Bankman-Fried had earlier said that the difficult market conditions in the digital asset space could trigger a wave of M&A activity. Bankman-Fried believes there is going to be a ton of M&A and it wouldn’t come as a shock for FTX to acquire some of the business of exchanges that are shrinking.
In 2021, FTX’s US affiliate bought LedgerX, a digital currency futures and options exchange, to bring crypto derivatives to its US user base. Moreover, the company revealed in February that it wants to acquire Liquid Group, a fintech firm, to navigate Japan’s crypto exchange laws.
