(Reuters) -Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX crypto exchange is exploring whether it might be able to acquire Robinhood Markets Inc, Bloomberg News reported https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-27/sam-bankman-fried-s-ftx-seeking-to-buy-robinhood-hood on Monday, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
FTX is discussing internally how to buy the app-based brokerage and Robinhood has not received a formal takeover approach, the report said.
Robinhood, shares in which rose 14% in afternoon trading, declined to comment. The company has a market capitalization of nearly $7 billion as of Friday’s closing price.
FTX did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Last month, Bankman-Fried had revealed a 7.6% stake in Robinhood but said he did not have any intention of taking control of the retail-trading platform. Robinhood’s dual-class shares currently give its founders control of 64% of the voting shares outstanding.
Trading volumes at the brokerage have eased from last year’s frenetic pace when retail investors used the platform to pump money into shares of so-called meme stocks including GameStop and AMC Entertainment.
That, along with a sell-off in high-growth technology stocks, has driven a near 50% drop in Robinhood shares this year.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru and John McCrank in New York; Editing by Aditya Soni)