At least five family offices are among many equity investors disclosed in the FTX bankruptcy filing, as the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency exchange continues to make waves across the investing world.
Listed in the filing are the family offices of James Hahn, Robert Belfer, Bob Kraft, Daniel Och and Joseph Tsai, as well as the Hirji Wigglesworth Family Foundation.
Of the five, Och's Willoughby Capital family office and related entities held by far the largest stake, with its various entities owning about 6.5 million shares at different stages of investment. Although it's difficult to make apples-to-apples comparisons with private investments at multiple stages, the Willoughby holdings are around three-fourths the stake of the venture capital fund Tiger Global, which news reports estimate at $38 million in cash. Mr. Och is the founder and former CEO of Och-Ziff Capital Management, now known as Sculptor Capital Management. Willoughby Capital is a growth-equity investor with stakes in Coinbase, Robinhood and Instacart.
Mr. Belfer's family owned more than 2 million shares of FTX at different stages of investment. Those investments came through both Belfer Investment Partners and a related entity, Lime Partners LLC. Mr. Belfer's family made its fortune in the oil business. His father, Arthur, founded Belco Petroleum and made it into a Fortune 500 company. A series of mergers put the family fortune into Enron stock in the early 2000s.
At one point considered a billionaire, Arthur Belfer's fortune after the Enron collapse in 2001 was estimated at $110 million by Forbes. It is unclear how much the Belfer fortune has grown since then, although he has reportedly made multiple donations of more than $100 million to different universities over the past 20 years.
Mr. Tsai, Alibaba Group executive chairman and owner of the Brooklyn Nets of the National Basketball Association, had more than 1 million shares of Class A common stock through his Blue Pool Capital family office. In late 2021, he took to Twitter to announce, "I like crypto."
Mr. Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots of the National Football League, had a stake of about 500,000 shares through KPC Venture Capital LLC. He also had a professional relationship with one of FTX's most prominent stakeholders: NFL quarterback Tom Brady.
The Hirji Wigglesworth Family Foundation was launched by Asiff Sherali Hirji and Sarah Wigglesworth, who married in 2003. The foundation's stake of 437,636 shares of Series A preferred stock is somewhat smaller than the Kraft stake. The foundation had around $5 million in assets in its latest nonprofit filing.
Mr. Hirji's professional experience ranges from being a partner at Bain in 2002 to president and COO of Coinbase in 2019, and he is currently a board director at Forge, a private-company equity marketplace and custodian.
Ms. Wigglesworth capped her investment career with seven years at Katzenbach Partners and has devoted herself to a handful of board positions at non-profits since 2008.
Mr. Hahn's Asia Alpha VC Opportunity Fund held around 20,000 shares. The Hahn family invests in venture capital funds and tech companies across sectors including life sciences, fin-tech and artificial intelligence.
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