2024-10-07 20:39

FTX to repay 98% of customers within 60 days of effective date Customers to receive at least 118% of account value as of Nov 2022 Mixed customer response due to missed crypto price rebound NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) - FTX received court approval of its bankruptcy plan on Monday, which will allow it to fully repay customers using up to $16.5 billion in assets recovered since the once-leading crypto exchange collapsed. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey approved the wind-down plan at a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware, saying FTX's success made it "a model case for how to deal with a very complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding." The plan is built on a series of settlements with FTX customers and creditors, U.S. government agencies, and liquidators appointed to wind down FTX's operations outside the U.S. The settlements allow FTX to use its assets to repay customers of its crypto exchange first, before paying potentially competing claims filed by government regulators. FTX plans to repay 98% of its customers - those who held $50,000 or less on the exchange - within 60 days after the plan's effective date, which has not yet been determined. Once among the world's top crypto exchanges, FTX collapsed after news surfaced that founder Sam Bankman-Fried took customer money to pay off risky bets made by his hedge fund, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for stealing from FTX customers, and he has appealed his conviction. FTX remains in talks with the U.S. Department of Justice over $1 billion that the government seized during the criminal prosecution of Bankman-Fried. FTX shareholders, who would normally receive nothing in a bankruptcy proceeding, could receive up to $230 million from the funds seized by the DOJ, according to court documents. FTX has estimated that it will have between $14.7 billion and $16.5 billion available to repay creditors, enough to pay customers at least 118% of the value in their accounts as of November 2022, the date that the company filed for bankruptcy. U.S. government agencies, including the Commodity Futures Trading Comission and Internal Revenue Service, agreed to let FTX prioritize customer repayment over fines and tax debts, and a liquidator appointed in the Bahamas agreed to work with FTX after previously challenging the company's authority to file for bankruptcy in the U.S. FTX said the result was a victory for creditors, made possible by its ability to recover cash and crypto assets that had gone missing during the company's chaotic collapse. The company also raised additional funds by selling off other assets, including its investments in tech companies like the artificial-intelligence startup Anthropic. "Today's achievement is only possible because of the experience and tireless work of the team of professionals supporting this case, who have recovered billions of dollars by rebuilding FTX's books from the ground up and from there marshaling assets from around the globe," FTX CEO John Ray said in a statement on Monday. Customers have had a mixed response to the plan, with many expressing disappointment that FTX's demise caused them to miss out on a strong rebound in crypto prices since the market bottomed out in 2022. Some customers had objected to the plan, demanding higher repayments reflecting recent rises in cryptocurrency values. David Adler, an attorney representing four objecting creditors, said that the price of a bitcoin, for example, has risen to over $63,000 from its November 2022 price of $16,000. Customers that deposited bitcoin on FTX's exchange are finding it difficult to accept FTX's claim that they are receiving a 100% recovery based on those lower prices of two years ago, Adler said. FTX said it was not possible to simply return the crypto assets customers had deposited, because customers' assets were gone, misappropriated by Bankman-Fried. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, FTX.com held only 0.1% of the bitcoin that its customers believed they had deposited on the exchange, according to the company. One of FTX's financial advisers, Steve Coverick, testified on Monday that it would "exorbitantly expensive" to purchase billions of crypto assets on the open market in order to repay customers with the same types of cryptocurrency they had before the bankruptcy. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/legal/crypto-exchange-ftxs-liquidation-plan-receives-court-approval-2024-10-07/

2024-10-07 20:35

Oct 7 (Reuters) - Fortuna Mining (FVI.TO) , opens new tab said on Monday that the government of Burkina Faso does not plan to withdraw the Canadian company's existing mining permits in the country. Junta leader Ibrahim Traoré said on Saturday that Burkina Faso planned to withdraw mining permits from some foreign companies and would seek to produce more of its own gold, without specifying which permits would be canceled. Shares of gold miners with projects in the West African country slumped sharply in Monday trade at the Toronto Stock Exchange, dragging down the entire index. Shares of Fortuna Mining were down 9% at 3:25pm ET (19.25 GMT). Orezone Gold Corp (ORE.TO) , opens new tab, which owns the Bombero gold mine, was also down 9% at the TSX. Gold miner Endeavour Mining (EDV.L) , opens new tab said Traor discussed several topics on Saturday to commemorate two years of his presidency and made a reference that certain mining permits may potentially be revoked. However, Endeavour said the government remains supportive of the company and it is not aware of any plans to revoke any of its mining permits. Shares of Endeavour were down 3% at the TSX. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fortuna-mining-says-burkina-faso-will-not-withdraw-existing-permits-2024-10-07/

2024-10-07 20:34

Florida county, facing up to 12-foot storm surge, orders 500,000 to evacuate Mexican city of Merida, nearby port brace for likely surge, dangerous winds and rain Governor DeSantis and President Biden declare emergencies for Florida Oct 7 (Reuters) - Hurricane Milton strengthened into a Category 5 storm on Monday, posing an immediate threat to Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where the state ordered mass evacuations while still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Helene. With maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour (285 kph), Milton was categorized as the strongest level storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. Milton was classified as a tropical storm on Sunday afternoon but in less than 24 hours it "explosively" morphed into a Category 5 storm - the third fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Though it was likely to weaken by the time it makes landfall in Florida on Wednesday, counties along the state's western coast ordered evacuations as they braced for potentially catastrophic winds, rain and a storm surge of eight to 12 feet (2.4 to 3.7 meters). The hurricane center projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than 3 million people. Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, ordered on Monday the mandatory evacuation of more than 500,000 people. Other counties ordered people in low-lying areas to take shelter on higher ground. With barely 24 hours for people to mobilize, officials raised concerns of traffic jams and long lines at gas stations, but nonetheless urged people to take the storm as deadly serious. "There's no other way to put this. Over the next few days, Tampa Bay is faced with the biggest hurricane it's had for more than 100 years," Pinellas County emergency management director Cathie Perkins told a press conference. A Category 3 storm in 1921, before storms were named, devastated the Tampa Bay area. It had a storm surge of 11 feet (3.4 meters). "We've seen the old black-and-white pictures, but we're about to have the 3-D reality," Perkins said. Milton skirted the northern edge of the Yucatan Peninsula, including its tourist hotspots and cargo ports. The hurricane center said the storm surge the could raise water levels by up to six feet (1.8 meters). The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, and close to several Maya ruins popular with tourists and the port of Progreso. As of 4 p.m. CDT (2100 GMT), the storm was about 80 miles (125 km) west-northwest of Progreso and 675 miles (1,085 km) southwest of Tampa, moving east at 10 mph (17 kph), the hurricane center said. "Damaging hurricane-force winds and a life-threatening storm surge with destructive waves are expected across portions of the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula through tonight," the hurricane center said. "Milton is expected to grow in size and remain an extremely dangerous hurricane when it approaches the west coast of Florida on Wednesday." After making landfall somewhere around the Tampa-St. Petersburg area on Wednesday, Milton was projected to cross the Florida peninsula and still emerge as a hurricane on the Atlantic coast. "It's going to be powerful, so please take the appropriate precautions," said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a news briefing after issuing a state-of-emergency declaration for 51 counties. "This has the potential to have a lot of damage." President Joe Biden also declared an emergency for Florida, allowing federal disaster-relief operations to commence. Relief efforts are already underway throughout the U.S. Southeast in the wake of Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that killed more than 200 people across six states. It was the deadliest named storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005. With Milton bearing down on Florida, forecasts of a supercharged Atlantic hurricane season were starting to look more on target than they did at the beginning of September, typically the peak time for the formation of named storms. Milton is the season's ninth hurricane, and the second Atlantic storm to reach Category 5 this season after Beryl, which in July became the earliest storm to reach that distinction. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/powerful-hurricane-milton-takes-aim-tampa-florida-braces-fresh-blow-2024-10-07/

2024-10-07 20:32

NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) - The Biden administration is working on plans to bring additional decommissioned nuclear power reactors back online to help meet soaring demand for emissions-free electricity, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said on Monday. Two such projects are already underway, including the planned recommissioning of Holtec's Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan and the potential restart of a unit at Constellation Energy's (CEG.O) , opens new tab Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, near the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. Asked if additional shuttered plants could be restarted, Zaidi said: "We're working on it in a very concrete way. There are two that I can think of." He declined to identify the power plants or provide further details about the effort. Speaking at the Reuters Sustainability conference in New York, Zaidi said repowering existing dormant nuclear plants was part of a three-pronged strategy of President Joe Biden's administration to bring more nuclear power online to fight climate change and boost production. The other two prongs include development of small modular reactors (SMRs) for certain applications, and continuing development of next generation, advanced nuclear reactors. Biden has called for a tripling of U.S. nuclear power capacity to fuel energy demand that is accelerating in part due to expansion of power hungry technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Last week, the Biden administration said it closed a $1.52 billion loan to resurrect the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan, which would take two years to re-open. Constellation and Microsoft (MSFT.O) , opens new tab, meanwhile, signed a power deal last month to help resurrect a unit of the Pennsylvania plant, which Constellation hopes will also receive government support. Zaidi told the conference that the U.S. Navy on Monday had requested information to build SMRs on a half dozen bases. "SMR is a technology that is not a decades-away play. It's one that companies in the United States are looking to deploy in this decade," he said. Zaidi also addressed the woes that have beset a separate Biden clean energy goal, to bring 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity online by the end of the decade. The administration shelved offshore wind lease sales this year in both Oregon and the Gulf of Mexico due to low demand from companies, as high costs, equipment issues and supply chain challenges hit other projects. Zaidi said at least half of the 30GW goal is already under construction and that some of the early snags provide helpful learning for future projects. "I am pretty optimistic about the next of wave of projects where we will have a domestic supply chain and hopefully better cost to capital relative to what projects are facing right now," he said. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/us-looks-resurrect-more-nuclear-reactors-white-house-adviser-says-2024-10-07/

2024-10-07 20:26

NEW YORK, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Precidian Investments launched hedged ADRs on Monday that U.S. investors can use to buy foreign-listed stocks while limiting the impact of fluctuating currencies. Precidian, an exchange-traded fund developer, said it will list the hedged American Depositary Receipts on Cboe's U.S. equities exchange. Investors buying shares of companies overseas, including ADRs, are exposed to fluctuating exchange rates between the dollar and the foreign currency. But by coupling the ADRs with a currency overlay into one security, investors can mitigate currency exposure, said Cboe. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce will be the counterparty providing the currency hedge. "This really is the next generation ADR for U.S. investors," Rob Marrocco, global head of ETP listings at Cboe, told Reuters. The product will be called ADRhedged. Cboe's U.S. equities exchange will initially list AstraZeneca (AZN.L) , opens new tab ADRhedged, HSBC Holdings (HSBA.L) , opens new tab ADRhedged and Shell (SHEL.L) , opens new tab ADRhedged and anticipates adding another 14 soon after. Stuart Thomas, founding principal at Precidian, told Reuters that the more than $1 trillion ADR market has needed a hedged alternative for decades. ADRhedged comes as the greenback's appreciation against most global currencies over the past decade has caused ADR investments to underperform in dollar terms, said Cboe. "People have been buying them for years, but the average investor has not had access to a currency hedge overlay for international investing," said Thomas. "Now you've got another set of tools at your disposal." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/cboe-list-hedged-adrs-developed-by-precidian-2024-10-07/

2024-10-07 20:06

LUBUMBASHI, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional watchdog has found no evidence that a 2012 Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) conflict minerals disclosure rule has reduced violence in Democratic Republic of Congo, it said in a report , opens new tab on Monday. Armed groups continue to fight for control of gold mines in the east of the Central African country, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in its report. It also said the rule - which requires some companies to report on their use of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold - has likely had no effect in neighbouring countries. "GAO found no empirical evidence that the rule has decreased the occurrence or level of violence in the eastern DRC, where many mines and armed groups are located," the report said. "GAO also found the rule was associated with a spread of violence, particularly around informal, small-scale gold mining sites," it said, adding that gold is the most difficult to trace, and easiest to smuggle, of the four minerals covered by the rule. Congo is the world's top producer of tantalum, which is considered a critical mineral by the United States and the European Union. The report added that "the SEC disagreed with some of GAO's findings and raised concerns about some of its methodology and analyses." The GAO said it made certain adjustments that did not materially affect its findings. The SEC did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Last year, GAO said that some U.S. companies buying minerals from Congo and its neighbours were failing to meet disclosure requirements. On Sept. 30, Bintou Keita, head of the U.N. mission in Congo, told the U.N. Security Council that M23 rebels in the east are generating $300,000 per month in revenues in a coltan-mining region they seized earlier this year. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/us-rules-conflict-minerals-have-not-reduced-violence-congo-gao-says-2024-10-07/