The size of the bonus is a reflection of Ray’s work achieving “a hugely successful and, in many ways, unprecedented” resolution of the massive and complex crypto bankruptcy, FTX said in court papers. If approved, Ray’s bonuses would push the total cost of FTX’s bankruptcy to just shy of $1 billion.

FTX said the proposed payment was justified, noting higher than anticipated customer payments while comparing the award to executive pay at other large companies. In similar bankruptcy cases, the firm said, the top restructuring executives got an average pay of nearly half of a percentage point of what creditors recovered. In this case, Ray is getting less than one-third of 1% of recoveries, by their calculations. Chief executives, running comparably-sized public companies received average pay of $16.7 million, FTX said.

“Mr. Ray took command of a sinking ship and immediately became an indispensable asset for all of the Debtors’ advisory teams (including the prudent hires that he made),” FTX said. “He utilized his prior experience to not only prevent complete disaster but produce an overwhelmingly positive outcome for all stakeholders involved.”

In October, Judge John Dorsey called the proceedings “a model case” for dealing with a very complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Customer claims traded between 10 cents and 14 cents on the dollar after the exchange collapsed in November 2022, indicating the market expected only about $1 billion would be returned to customers, FTX said. But distributions to FTX customers are now expected to exceed $12.5 billion under a plan that pays customers between 119% to 143% on their claims which are valued at the time the company filed Chapter 11, the company said.

Law firms and other advisers who tracked down billions of dollars in digital assets and cash scattered across a byzantine network of accounts and legal entities operating under the FTX umbrella have been paid $948 million and $952 million in fees have already been approved by the court. Ray’s consulting firm has already been paid more than $8 million, according to court records.

Source: FORTUNE