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Temasek writes off US$275 million stake in FTX as Singapore’s state investor cops fallout from crypto exchange’s blowout

  • Temasek had invested US$210 million in FTX International and US$65 million in FTX US from October last year to February this year
  • Both Sequoia Capital and SoftBank had earlier said they would write down their investment in the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange

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Temasek Holdings says it currently has “no direct exposure in cryptocurrencies” beyond the equity in FTX, which it is writing off. Photo: Shutterstock
Xinmei Shen
Temasek Holdings, the Singaporean state holding company, said it will write down its entire US$275 million investment in FTX, becoming the single biggest victim to date in the collapse of the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, which has so far claimed the fortunes of millions of individual traders and the most established professional investors.
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“It is apparent from this investment that perhaps our belief in the actions, judgment and leadership of Sam Bankman-Fried, formed from our interactions with him and views expressed in our discussions with others, would appear to have been misplaced,” Temasek wrote in a statement on Thursday, referring to the 30-year-old founder and former chief executive of FTX.

Temasek, which put in US$210 million in FTX International and US$65 million in FTX US from October last year to February this year, said it decided to write down its total investment “irrespective of the outcome of FTX’s bankruptcy protection filing”.

The state-owned investment firm said that it currently has “no direct exposure in cryptocurrencies” beyond the equity in FTX. It added that the FTX investment accounted for only 0.09 per cent of Temasek’s net portfolio value of S$403 billion (US$294.1 billion) as of March 31.

Office workers walk past a signage of Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings. Photo: Agence France-Presse
Office workers walk past a signage of Singapore state-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings. Photo: Agence France-Presse

The US$275 million write-down by Temasek dwarfs the US$90 million accumulated investment losses by the Singapore government at the Suzhou Industrial Park, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, in the six years that ended in 2000.

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Temasek is among a range of established institutions around the world that poured money into FTX from 2021, sending the crypto exchange’s valuation up to US$32 billion in February this year. These include Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp and the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.
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