Voyager Digital CFO Exits After 5-Month Term

CEO Stephen Ehrlich will take over former CFO Ashwin Prithipaul’s duties in the interim

September 26, 2022 04:11 am

Blockworks exclusive art by axel rangel

Prithipaul worked at Voyager for barely five months
The lender’s creditors opposed an employee retention bonus proposal last month

Voyager Digital’s chief financial officer (CFO) resigned some three months after the crypto lender filed for bankruptcy.

Ashwin Prithipaul, who worked there for just five months, will leave after a transition period for other opportunities, the company said in a statement on Friday. CEO Stephen Ehrlich will take up his duties in the meantime.

“On behalf of the Board of Directors and the executive leadership team, I want to extend our sincerest gratitude to Ashwin for his many valuable contributions, especially for his efforts during Voyager’s restructuring process,” Ehrlich said in the statement.

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Prithipaul previously held CFO roles at financial brokerage DriveDigital and at crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital. It isn’t clear where Prithipaul is headed next.

Voyager is among a handful of crypto lenders hurt by the recent crypto market downturn. The unraveling of the market led by bankruptcies at Three Arrows Capital, Celsius and Voyager highlighted the perils of contagion and poor risk management. The firm had more than 100,000 creditors at the time of insolvency, but it has drawn ample interest to warrant competing bids for its remaining assets.

Creditors objected to employee retention bonuses

The firm had wanted to pay retention bonuses to employees during its bankruptcy proceedings under a “key employee retention plan” proposal. It had marked 38 employees as key to the business due to their “valuable institutional knowledge” that would be expensive to replace quickly. If executed, the plan would’ve cost nearly $2 million.

But Voyager’s creditors objected, saying the firm hadn’t provided enough reasons to warrant that decision. They also opposed the fact that Voyager had made no layoffs, unlike other crypto companies like Coinbase, Bitpanda, BlockFi and Blockchain.com. At the time, only 12 employees had left voluntarily.

Voyager is set to liquidate its assets after an auction, with the final results set to be announced on Sept. 29 at 2:00 pm ET.

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