According to a recent court filing, Jason Raznick (CEO of media company Benzinga) has been named to an unsecured creditor panel in the Voyager Digital bankruptcy matter.
In chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, creditors’ committees normally consist of people and companies that have the seven largest unsecured claims against the debtor, in this case New Jersey-based crypto brokerage Voyager Digital.
It’s a significant role. One of the committee’s responsibilities is to come up with a plan for how the business will be reorganized—without which, the case cannot be concluded—or decide if the company should be liquidated.
A virtual court hearing will be held on August 4th at 11 a.m. ET will decide how long customers or creditors must submit proof of claims against Voyager. Participants who wish to participate will have until Friday, July 28 to submit written comments to the court.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Wiles admitted only a few attorneys from other jurisdictions as unsecured creditors to the case, which is currently being heard in Southern District of New York.
On Wednesday, the judge approved attorney Paul R. Hage, of Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss in Michigan, to represent Raznick, whose media company is based in Detroit. SimilarWeb data shows that the financial media publication has less than 200 employees and an annual revenue between $15 and $25 million.
“I’d rather not comment on the case at this point,” Hage Submitted Decrypt In an email “The committee was appointed yesterday. It is now focusing on interviewing and retaining professionals in order to maximize recovery for the parties they represent.”
Raznick did, however, not immediately respond to a request for comment. Decrypt.
Raznick wasn’t named as an unsecured creditor in the initial bankruptcy filing from Voyager Digital CEO Steve Erhlich on July 6. But neither were a lot of the Voyager’s largest unsecured creditors.
Alameda Research identified a $75 million claim (which was also owes Voyager $377 million And extended the company’s reach. line of credit worth $500 million) as the single largest unsecured debt and a $1 million claim from Google as a vendor, the filing doesn’t identify any other of the 50 largest unsecured creditors.
The fact remains that Raznick likely wouldn’t have been appointed to the creditors’ committee unless he had one of the largest claims against VoyagerThe price ranges from $3 million to $10 millions.
Raznick has kept his silence about his involvement in Voyager’s bankruptcy. Social media posts from Raznick at the beginning July indicate that he wanted to see the company thrive.
On July 5, a day before Voyager filed its petition for chapter 11 protection, Raznick retweeted messages calling on Bankman-Fried to “#savevoyager.”
“It’s a great app & does have loyal users,” Raznick wrote in a July 3 tweet, quoting a Twitter user who suggested that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, “throw Voyager a 1B$ loan and save retail investors.”
A few weeks earlier, on June 13, Voyager Digital CEO Steve Ehrlich did a live interview on the company’s YouTube show, “Benzinga Live,” a day after the now insolvent crypto lender Celsius announced that it had frozen customer withdrawals to “stabilize liquidity.”
Ehrlich, after some connectivity problems, can be heard saying that Voyager had ended a previously announced relationship with Celsius.
“Our platform is working just as normal. Our partnership with Celsius ended a while ago, so our customers’ assets are safe and we’re processing everything as normal,” he told Benzinga Live host Aaron Bry. “That relationship dissipated over the last few months and we have very little [to] no customers assets at all, over at Celsius.”
In the video, Ehrlich goes on to say he thinks US Dollar Coin (USDC) is the only stablecoin “worthy” of a company like Voyager.
It would become the hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Also known as 3AC. 3AC defaulted on a $670m loan. 3AC was largely responsible for losing $200 million to Terra’s algorithmic stablecoin, UST.
“The Terra-Luna situation caught us very much off guard,” 3AC co-founder Kyle Davies told The Wall Street Journal June
Voyager CEO Ehrlich says in the video that being public makes it easier for investors to see how their money has been handled.
“We’re transparent as all can be,” he said.
Voyager stopped trading and ceased customer asset withdrawals on July 1 after issuing 3AC. Since Voyager filed for bankruptcy on July 6, more than 30 letters have been submitted to the bankruptcy judge overseeing the case—many of them from Voyager customers asking for access to their money.
“I feel as though I’m being strategically robbed in a civil way by Voyager Digital,” wrote customer “Analicia V” in a letter filed with the court on Wednesday afternoon.
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