Prices for FTX tokens, generally known as FTTs, received an surprising jolt earlier this month. Six months after FTX collapsed, the crypto alternate platform’s legal professionals steered that it might stage a comeback. But the percentages of a revival for a failed firm working with an unchanged enterprise mannequin and a infamous title are slender.
Slim-chance comebacks occur typically. Think of the revival of Apple beneath Steve Jobs, IBM’s restoration following heavy losses within the early Nineteen Nineties and carmaker GM’s post-bailout fortunes. For tarnished firms reminiscent of FTX, MoviePass, WeWork or SVB Capital these case research provide a glimmer of hope.
More than $7bn has been recovered in money, tokens and different belongings at FTX. Creditors might, in principle, select to restart the enterprise.
But chief government John Ray, employed to information it by way of chapter, has spent months highlighting its failures and people of founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who faces numerous felony prices. Confidence in crypto has evaporated. It stays laborious to insure in opposition to failures within the sector. Demand for FTX providers can be low.
MoviePass additionally lacks the goodwill vital to show its fortunes spherical. It has emerged from Chapter 11 chapter with a brand new cinema subscription concept. But the spectacular failure of its first plan means it’s unlikely to signal the type of engaging offers with cinema chains wanted to generate earnings.
Office rental start-up WeWork managed to go public through a particular objective acquisition firm following its failed preliminary public providing and the dramatic exit of its founder. Yet even after occupancy ranges improved, its enterprise continues to burn money. Cash and money equivalents fell from about $1bn to lower than $300mn final yr.
SVB Capital, the enterprise capital arm of Silicon Valley Bank is up on the market, and may do better. Though it reported a pre-tax lack of $180mn final yr, it owns stakes in a few of tech’s best-known enterprise capital corporations.
For FTX, hope and case research wouldn’t be sufficient. It needs a reworked enterprise plan and rebranding. Even a brazen reboot can not succeed beneath FTX’s tarnished title.
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