By Urvi Manoj Dugar and Yantoultra Ngui
(Reuters) – Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings stated on Monday it had lower compensation for the crew that beneficial its funding within the now-bankrupt FTX cryptocurrency trade, in addition to for its senior administration crew.
The transfer comes round six months after Temasek initiated an inside assessment of its funding in FTX, which resulted in a writedown of $275 million.
“Though there was no misconduct by the funding crew in reaching their funding suggestion, the funding crew and senior administration, who’re finally liable for funding selections made, took collective accountability and had their compensation lowered,” Temasek Chairman Lim Boon Heng stated in an announcement posted on Temasek’s web site on Monday.
Temasek didn’t element the quantity of compensation lower.
Temasek had stated its price of funding in FTX was 0.09% of its internet portfolio worth of S$403 billion ($304 billion) as of March 31, 2022, and that it presently had no direct publicity in cryptocurrencies.
Temasek additionally stated final yr it had carried out “intensive due diligence” on FTX, with its audited monetary assertion then “confirmed it to be worthwhile”.
FTX’s different backers resembling SoftBank Group Corp’s Imaginative and prescient Fund and Sequoia Capital had additionally marked down their funding to zero after FTX, based by Sam Bankman Fried, filed for chapter safety within the U.S. final yr.
“With FTX, as alleged by prosecutors and as admitted by key executives at FTX and its associates, there was fraudulent conduct deliberately hidden from buyers, together with Temasek,” Lim stated within the assertion on Monday. “However, we’re disenchanted with the end result of our funding, and the detrimental affect on our status.”
Temasek seeks to ship sustainable returns over the long run by investing into early-stage firms, Lim stated.
“Whereas there are inherent dangers each time we make investments, we imagine that we’ve to spend money on new sectors and rising applied sciences to grasp how these areas might affect the enterprise and monetary fashions of our current portfolio, and whether or not they can be drivers of future worth in an ever altering world,” Lim added.
($1 = 1.3245 Singapore {dollars})
(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Singapore; Modifying by Himani Sarkar and Lincoln Feast.)
