Vulture Investor Argo Partners Offers to Buy Quadriga Claims
Vulture investor Argo partners offers to buy claims against collapsed cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX
(Bloomberg) -- Argo Partners, a New York-based firm that specializes in buying distressed assets, is offering to purchase claims against the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX.
“We offer an upfront, guaranteed payment and also the ability to share distributions if they go above a certain point,” Jonathan Maruri, head of trading at Argo, said in a LinkedIn message. “Given the unknowns in a case like this, we have found it useful to offer creditors deals that lock in rates of recovery early in the case while also protecting themselves from the case taking a turn for the better.”
Maruri declined to comment on how much Argo Partners was offering creditors for their claims. The demise of Quadriga, which is in the midst of bankruptcy proceedings in Toronto, is being investigated by Canadian and U.S. authorities.
Quadriga closed its doors suddenly last year, when its funds were found to have disappeared following the sudden death of founder and Chief Executive Officer Gerald Cotten in December 2018 at the age of 30. Some 76,000 users lost C$215 million ($165 million) in cash and cryptocurrencies. Court documents show that the Quadriga Estate had about C$29 million in assets as of April.
For almost three decades, Argo Partners has mostly focused on acquiring claims against bankrupt companies, including Toys R Us Inc. and Nortel Networks Corp.
To contact the reporters on this story: Olga Kharif in Portland at okharif@bloomberg.net;Doug Alexander in Toronto at dalexander3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka, Rita Nazareth
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