Robinhood scuttles deal to buy crypto company Ziglu
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Robinhood has canceled plans to buy U.K.-based crypto company Ziglu.
Why it matters: The dead deal puts pressure on Ziglu to address its future, given the picture it painted last year during a renegotiation.
Background: Robinhood agreed to acquire Ziglu in April, but in August it sought to renegotiate the price from $170 million to $72.5 million, AltFi reported.
- Ziglu CEO Mark Hipperson urged shareholders to accept the lower valuation, saying at the time that a terminated deal would have left Ziglu in an "extremely challenging market, and undercapitalized for the period ahead."
- "We believe the revised proposal ... is the best and only reasonable path forward for the company,” he wrote at the time.
Details: Robinhood terminated the agreement earlier this month, the company revealed in its earnings report yesterday.
- It holds some Ziglu equity that was written down to zero, resulting in a $12 million impairment charge.
- The Ziglu acquisition was marketed as Robinhood's way to catapult itself into the U.K. market. Robinhood said yesterday that it still plans to expand into the region.
- Ziglu and Robinhood have not yet responded to requests for comment.
Of note: Robinhood and Ziglu announced the deal when bitcoin's price was above $41,000. Renegotiations began not long after the crashes of Three Arrow Capital and Terra. Now, post-FTX and with bitcoin's price at $22,760, the deal is dead.
The bigger picture: Robinhood is still open to the idea of M&A, even if it has soured on this deal. "It's not lost upon us that we have a large balance sheet, and the environment now is going to create some opportunities," said Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.
