01-09-2023 icon

FTX spent $40 million on flight, food and hotels in 9 months

By Lucy Adegbe
FTX

Bankruptcy court documents have shown that FTX’s Bahamian company spent a huge amount of money on luxury hotels and accommodation, flights and food in the nine months before the exchange’s collapse. 

According to the documents reviewed by Business Insider, FTX Digital Markets went through $40 million between last January and September, before filing for bankruptcy in November because of “liquidity issues.”

The report stated that more than $15 million went on luxury hotels and accommodation, with $5.8 million of that at one resort — the Albany Hotel. This luxury resort is where Sam Bankman-Fried lived in his $30 million penthouse until his arrest.

Around $3.6 million went on the Grand Hyatt, a four-star hotel that hosted British royalty in March. There was also $800,000 spent at the five-star Rosewood resort.

Furthermore, almost $7 million was spent on meals and entertainment, with around half of that on catering services, according to the documents. Nearly $4 million was spent on flights and over $500,000 was spent on postage and delivery.

According to London’s Financial Times, FTX made a private deal with an air carrier to fly their Amazon orders from a Miami depot since the e-commerce giant didn’t deliver to the Bahamas.

The report added that the firm also provided Bahamas staff with a “full suite of cars and gas covered for all employees [and] unlimited, full expense covered trips to any office globally.”