Investment Bank CEO Tried Warning SBF About FTX’s Potential Collapse

Investment banking company Jefferies Group’s CEO, Richard “Rich” Handler, took to Twitter to reveal that he unsuccessfully tried to get in touch with FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried earlier this year when the latter was offering bailouts to several troubled firms.

While sharing his “personal email trail” on “non-meeting with FTX,” Handler revealed several snapshots that he had sent to an unknown person enquiring if they knew Bankman-Fried.

• The emails were dated July 2022. The recipient responded by saying that they have met the FTX exec once and went on to add that he was the creditor of a deal they were handling.
• Handler then reverted, saying he had a lot of experience when runs occur. He expressed his willingness to meet SBF. His email read,

“What he is going through is not going to pass as quickly as he might wish and you can quickly become the rescuee versus the rescuer if you are not careful.”

• The 61-year-old American businessman even asked to forward SBF a note for a quick “lunch grab” in September in the Bahamas but got no response.
• In retrospect, Handler said that “just like a broken clock, even a boomer can be right sometimes.”
• FTX, on the other hand, is now anticipating a fundraise from Tron’s Justin Sun after a failed deal with Binance.
• The company faced a massive liquidity crisis after Binance said it will sell all of its FTT tokens. More information about the timeline of the entire FTX fiasco can be found here.