Following the signing of the letter of intent to purchase Fortress Trust, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse declared the business had decided "not to move forward with an outright acquisition." Ripple intended to continue investing in Fortress, according to Garlinghouse, who did not give any specific justifications for pulling out of the arrangement.
Ripple Announces Withdrawal From Fortress Trust Deal in Garlinghouse
The CEO of Ripple revealed on Thursday that the company had abandoned its intentions to acquire cryptocurrency custodian company Fortress Trust. Early in September 2023, Ripple became interested in the Nevada-licensed financial services company created by Scott Purcell, a former CEO of the now-defunct crypto custodian Prime Trust. When Garlinghouse made that statement, Ripple said it was "excited to bring on this team and its technology to accelerate our business."
Since then, Garlinghouse has spoken to the public on social networking platform X and explained why the deal isn't moving forward. We signed a letter of intent to buy Fortress Trust a few weeks ago, but we've subsequently decided against doing so altogether. Ripple will still be a shareholder in Fortress, Garlinghouse wrote.
The Ripple CEO continued:
The Fortress team has developed products that address genuine customer needs and is very talented. Even though the result is different from what was anticipated, we will still support them and hope to collaborate again in the future.
It's interesting to note that Fortress revealed it was "impacted by a third-party vendor" the same week that the deal announcement broke. Later reports clarified Ripple's purported assistance to bring Fortress's clients together. Fortress reportedly suffered a $15 million loss as a result of the incident.
With the contract no longer on the table, Fortress shared Garlinghouse's social media tweets about it and reposted his comments on their official X account page. Mighty Capital, Salt, Ayon Capital, Nevcaut Ventures, Eagle River, and Ripple have all contributed to the financing of Fortress.
What do you make of Ripple's decision to scuttle the Fortress Trust deal? Post your ideas and viewpoints on this topic in the comments area below.