Come stay a night at a luxury hotel in the Bahamas! Where did your money go when FTX employees splurged it?

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Come stay a night at a luxury hotel in the Bahamas! Where did your money go when FTX employees splurged it?

Following bankruptcy, FTX is reported to have a financial black hole of up to billions of dollars. Apart from being impacted by investment activities of its sister company Alameda, the chaotic internal borrowing situation within the company is also one of the reasons. Recently, it was discovered in bankruptcy court documents that after relocating its headquarters to the Bahamas, FTX had been spending extravagantly, with over $20 million spent on accommodation and dining in just nine months.

FTX's Lavish Spending Before Bankruptcy

According to a report by Insider, court documents from FTX's bankruptcy proceedings revealed that FTX spent approximately $40 million in the 9 months leading up to its bankruptcy on expenses such as hotels, entertainment, and transportation.

During this period, FTX's Bahamas entity, "FTX Digital Markets," indulged in extravagant spending without generating customer revenue, with accommodation costs alone totaling $15.4 million. Of this amount, $5.8 million was spent at the Albany hotel, a bay resort with its own golf course and marina. In the month leading up to his arrest, SBF resided in the top-floor luxury apartment at the Albany hotel, owned by FTX and valued at around $30 million.

Albany Hotel Exterior

Additionally, the FTX team spent approximately $3.6 million at the Grand Hyatt hotel in the Bahamas and $800,000 at the Rosewood hotel.

Grand Hyatt Hotel in the Bahamas
Rosewood Hotel in the Bahamas

Regarding dining and entertainment, FTX spent $6.9 million, with half of the amount allocated to food services. The largest expenditure of $1.4 million was at the Grand Hyatt hotel, with an additional $1 million spent on catering services from a company called Six Stars Catering.

Flight transportation expenses totaled $6.9 million, with over $500,000 used for mailing services. Due to the inability to ship items to the Bahamas through online services, FTX specifically hired private planes to deliver packages.

According to data from Growjo, with 1,310 FTX employees, each employee spent an average of $12,000 on accommodation and $5,300 on dining and entertainment in the 9 months leading up to the bankruptcy.