As someone who grew up in Houston and remembers going to Enron Field, and the complete and utter chaos caused by what was at the time the largest bankruptcy in history hearing the word Enron catches my attention. For those that have not heard of the Enron Scandal or were too young to remember it the company was publicly traded and had a market cap of around $67 billion in 2000 which was just crazy. It then turned out that the accounting team had cooked the books in ways that had never been seen before and like any house of cards it came crashing down resulting in a lot of people, especially those employed by the company, losing everything as their retirements were all in Enron stock.
When I heard that John J. Ray III was the person put in charge of handling FTX's massive bankruptcy I knew the name rang a bell but I could not place it. Know knowing that he was the one in charge of Enron after it declared bankruptcy it is safe to say the guy has seen some of the craziest collapses and had to try and pick up pieces for investors after the fact. I think for the most part people understood that FTX's books were going to be a complete and utter mess but I do not think the true nature could be understood without the experience and knowledge of Mr. Ray III.
While Enron had some pretty strict corporate controls seeing the statement, “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information.” Even though FTX was run by a young kid it did have some people who used to work in the US government in the SEC and CFTC that held key posts so to see this is striking. It also seems like this company might have been more of a house of cards than initially thought as the audited financial statements are having to be redone from the ground up and the value of assets found so far is dramatically lower than expected. Only $740 million in crypto has been located and moved to cold storage while another $560 million in various other assets have been located as well. It is mind-boggling that the way that SBF and FTX operated involved not having a clue how much cash they had while wheeling and dealing.
To end this on a positive note I do think that having John J. Ray III in charge of the bankruptcy is a really good move as he has handled these monumental cases before so hopefully he can continue to produce results for those affected. Also, if you do not use or have signed up for Fold Apps free no-strings-attached debit card if you sign up via my link here you will be able to receive 20,000 sats upon signing up! Do not be like me and sign up without a referral as then you do not get any bonus sats!
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