Temasek Latest to Write Down US$275 Million Investment to Zero in FTX

Singapore’s state-owned investor Temasek announced that it has decided to write down its full investment in collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, irrespective of the outcome of its bankruptcy protection filing.

Temasek had invested US$210 million for a minority stake of ~1% in FTX International, and another US$65 million for a minority stake of ~1.5% in FTX US, across 2 funding rounds from October 2021 to January 2022.

The investor added that the cost of its investment in FTX was 0.09% of its net portfolio value of S$403 billion as of 31 March 2022.

Temasek claims to have done an “extensive due diligence process on FTX” which took approximately 8 months.

The investor also sought to further distance itself from FTX’s evolving fiasco by stating that it did not have a board seat since Temasek held only a minority stake in the crypto exchange.

Temasek said in a statement,

“There are inherent risks whenever we invest, divest, or hold our assets, and wherever we operate. While this write down of our investment in FTX will not have significant impact on our overall performance, we treat any investment losses seriously and there will be learnings for us from this.

We will continue to remain prudent and exercise caution even as we explore opportunities that are aligned with our structural trends, to deliver sustainable returns over the long term for our overall portfolio.”

Temasek follows in the footsteps of Japanese investment conglomerate SoftBank which invested just under US$100 million in FTX.

Meanwhile, crypto-focused venture capital firm Paradigm’s Co-founder and Managing Partner Matt Huang expressed “deep regret” for having invested around US$278 million in the fallen crypto exchange. Paradigm was also forced to write down its investment in FTX to US$0.