FTX offloads remaining Anthropic shares as bankruptcy cost surpasses $500 million

While FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's trial has come to an end, pending an appeal, the FTX bankruptcy slogs on. 

In the latest update from the FTX estate, helmed by CEO John Ray III, the company has offloaded its remaining shares in Anthropic, the AI startup behind the chatbot Claude, according to the firm's latest bankruptcy filings. 

FTX sold the remaining 15 million shares for about $30 each, netting over $450 million in proceeds. That brings the total haul from FTX's original $500 million investment in the company to about $1.3 billion, for a profit of around $800 million. The price per share for this second sale was the same for the first sale back in March. 

The top buyer on this round, global venture capital fund G Squared, purchased about one-third of the remaining shares, 4.5 million, for $135 million. Venture capital funds also made up the majority of the other 20 buyers of the Anthropic shares. 

A ballooning bankruptcy cost

Following the latest filings from the bankruptcy estate, the cost of the FTX bankruptcy has surpassed $500 million in legal and administrative fees, The Block reported.

FTX creditors have complained that Sullivan and Cromwell, the primary law firm in charge of FTX's bankruptcy, was also one of the firms to represent FTX before its bankruptcy, a potential conflict of interest that has sparked the appointment of an independent examiner and a class-action lawsuit. An analysis by the New York Times last year found law firms have charged hundreds of millions of dollars in fees for crypto company bankruptcies. 

FTX CEO John Ray has billed the estate $5.6 million, according to his hourly rate of $1,300, since the start of the case. The estate plans to repay 98% of its creditors at least 118% of allowed claims, measured in dollar value at the time the exchange filed for bankruptcy.

Update: Updated bankruptcy costs based on approved fees.