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Trump's Media Company in Talks to Buy Bakkt Crypto Platform
deals & business :: 2024-11-19 :: source - bloomberg
By Gillian Tan, Olga Kharif and David Pan
(Bloomberg) -- President-elect Donald Trump’s Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. is in talks to buy the digital-asset marketplace Bakkt, according to people familiar with the discussions who asked not to be named sharing private information.
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Shares of Bakkt Holdings Inc. more than doubled after the Financial Times initially reported on the talks, which it described as at an “advanced” stage. The newspaper said Trump Media is closing in on an all-share purchase. Bakkt’s market capitalization was $155 million as of Friday’s close.
Bakkt was spun out of and is still majority-owned by Intercontinental Exchange Inc., the parent of the New York Stock Exchange. Neither Bakkt nor TMTG returned requests for comment. ICE declined to comment.
Bakkt has been exploring a potential sale for months. Intercontinental Exchange, which owns some of the biggest futures markets as well as the NYSE, launched Bakkt with much fanfare in 2018.
Bakkt shares rose as much as 162% to $29.70. The stock had traded at more than $1,000 in October 2021 as cryptocurrency prices approached all-time highs. Less than three years later, the exchange disclosed that it might not be able to continue as a going concern, raising the possibility of being delisted from the NYSE.
Kelly Loeffler, Bakkt’s founding CEO, is married to Jeffrey Sprecher, who is the founder and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange and chair of the New York Stock Exchange.
Loeffler, who spent one year as the US Senator from Georgia, is serving as co-chair of Trump’s inaugural committee alongside Steve Witkoff.
Trump owns more than 50% of TMTG, which operates Truth Social, a social media site. Shares of Trump Media’s shares rose about 17%.
(Adds details on the possible acquisition in the first paragraph.)
[Bloomberg,sourced through Yahoo finance]
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