Ripple said on September 8 that it intended to buy Fortress for an undisclosed amount
Ripple said it would not go ahead with its outright acquisition of US-based chartered trust firm Fortress Trust.
A few weeks back, we signed a letter of intent to acquire Fortress Trust – we have since made the decision not to go ahead with an outright acquisition, though Ripple will remain an investor, Ripple’s Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
Ripple said on September 8 that it intended to buy Fortress for an undisclosed amount. At the time, a person with knowledge of the matter said the price tag was below the $250 million Ripple paid for custody company Metaco in May.
The day before, Fortress Trust disclosed a theft of customers’ crypto currency, later disclosed to total near $15 million. It blamed an unnamed third-party vendor that had fallen victim to a phishing attack. CoinDesk later identified the vendor as Retool, a San Francisco-based firm with Fortune 500 customers, which had built a portal for a handful of Fortress clients to access their funds. Ripple said the acquisition talks predated the theft, but it accelerated them.
Fortress Trust, which provides financial and regulatory infrastructure for blockchain firms, was formed by Scott Purcell, who has a long history in the industry. He was Chief Executive Officer of crypto custodian Prime Trust until 2020. Years after he left Prime Trust, the firm was ordered into receivership after fellow custodian BitGo terminated its proposed acquisition of the company.
The Fortress team is incredibly talented, and has built products solving real customer problems. While this outcome is different from what was originally planned, we will continue to support them and hope to work together in the future, Garlinghouse said.
