The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (Canada) said it plans to write off by the end of 2023 a $95 million investment in the Bitcoin exchange FTX that collapsed and its U.S. subsidiary.
The investments were equivalent to 0.05% of AUM of the fund and were carried out through the venture growth platform (TVG).
The unit was established in 2019 to invest in late-stage technology companies.
The organisation stressed that despite the failure of deals with FTX, TVG is meeting its stated objectives.
The pension fund conducts thorough due diligence on selected projects, engaging qualified external consultants and investment partners.
The organisation acknowledged that in the case of investments in FTX, the due diligence process did not identify platform-related risks. Due to the modest size of the investment, the incident did not affect the group’s portfolio overall. The strategy envisages diversification across asset classes, geographies and time horizons.
The pension fund supports regulators’ efforts to investigate the platform’s leadership, which was accused of fraud. The organisation assured that “will use the lessons learned to strengthen its investment approach.”
The crypto startup Coral switched to autonomous mode and did not lose its focus on development after the FTX collapse deprived it of the $20 million raised in the investment round.
In August 2022, the second-largest pension fund, CDPQ, wrote off investments in the amount of CAD 200 million (~$150 million) in the Celsius Network crypto-lending platform.