SBF Filing Details $546 Million Purchase of Robinhood Shares

Ex-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and ex-FTX CTO Gary Wang took out loans from Alameda Research to buy stock in the publicly traded exchange Robinhood, according to documents released on Tuesday by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

Ownership of the Robinhood shares is being contested in federal court by crypto lending platform BlockFi, who say Bankman-Fried’s shares were promised to them.

In the affidavit, Bankman-Fried says he and Wang formed a new company, Emergent, to acquire shares in Robinhood Markets Inc, better known as Robinhood, totaling $546.4 million.

“I borrowed the sum of $491,743,563.39, and Gary borrowed the sum of $54,638,173.71 from Alameda [Research],” Bankman-Fried said in the filing. “All of the sums evidenced by the promissory notes were capitalized into Emergent as working capital so that it could purchase the shares in Robinhood.”

Bankman-Fried says the pair took out four loans from Alameda Research: $316,667,182.50 and $35,185,242.50 on April 30, 2022, and $175,076,380.89 and $19,452,931.21 on May 15, 2022.

In the affidavit, Bankman-Fried says the loans were not all taken at the same time but were paid out in tranches over days before and after the dates listed on the filing. This would affect calculations of the total value of shares acquired, he explained.

Bankman-Fried is facing eight charges of wire and bank fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering stemming from the collapse of FTX and Alameda Research. Regulators accuse Bankman-Fried of funneling customer funds from FTX to Alameda Research to cover trades.

Complicating matters in the case is a claim from crypto lender BlockFi that Bankman-Fried pledged his shares in Robinhood to them. In November 2022, the Financial Times reported that the newly bankrupted BlockFi sued Bankman-Fried to obtain shares of Robinhood he allegedly pledged to the company as collateral earlier that month.

Bankman-Fried first bought his 7.6% stake in Robinhood in May 2022, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. BlockFi alleges Bankman-Fried promised his stake in Robinhood as collateral to help BlockFi through its liquidity issues.

In its lawsuit, according to the Financial Times, BlockFi says that Bankman-Fried’s Emergent defaulted on its obligations under the pledge agreement and failed to satisfy its obligations.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, after rival cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced that it would liquidate its position in FTT, FTX’s native token.