Bithumb, the major cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, is reportedly up for sale following the numerous recent police raids.
Bithumb Holdings To Sell Its Stake
According to a recent report, Bithumb Holdings, a company that owns 74% of Bithumb Korea, is promoting a sale of the cryptocurrency exchange. The file reads that Samjon KPMG is in charge of the sale, and there are “submitted letters of intent to take over.”
The coveted price of the major cryptocurrency exchange in Korea is reported to be in the range between 500 billion won and 700 billion won, which is between $430 million and $604 million, at current rates.
Reportedly, this is not the first time the exchange is up for grabs. Bithumb was previously promoted for sale in 2018 – an effort that was canceled in October last year because the Chairman of the company failed to attract investments. At the time, the price was set to 400 billion won ($340 million).
The Challenges Ahead
As per the report, this time, several foreign financial investors and domestic private equity funds have shown interest in taking over Bithumb.
However, investment industry experts expect a long process for the eventual completion of the deal because of a management rights dispute, which is going on for a while.
Recently, however, things took a turn for the worst. As CryptoPotato reported, a few days ago, the South Korean authorities summoned the company’s Chairman Lee Juhn-hoon for alleged fraud, concerning the sale of BXA tokens for over $25 million. Supposedly, Bithumb had planned to include the token on its platform but failed to, which had resulted in a significant loss of their investors.
Moreover, Bithumb was subjected to three police raids in the last couple of months. During one of them on September 7th, the police reported that authorities aimed to secure some additional evidence related to previous allegations against Bithumb Korea and Bithumb Holdings Chairman of the Board – Lee Jung-hoon.
The situation became quite a predicament last week when another raid of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) took place at the Korean exchange headquarters. The Seoul Central District Court reportedly approved the action, and authorities seized dozens of shares belonging to Bithumb Korea Director Kim Byung-Gun.
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