Bankman-Fried denies rumors of FTX-Robinhood deal

Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick breaks down how FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has denied rumors of making an acquisition deal with Robinhood.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: Breaking news. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is denying the report that he is looking to acquire Robinhood. Let's bring in Emily McCormick with those details. Emily?

EMILY MCCORMICK: Well, that's right, Shawna. FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is saying a deal is not actively being discussed to buy Robinhood at this time with Robinhood's team. Now he specifically offered this in a statement to Yahoo Finance. He said, "What we are excited about Robinhood's business prospects and potential ways we could partner with them, and I have always been impressed by the business that Vlad and his team have built. That being said, there are no active M&A conversations with Robinhood."

Now of course, guys, this comes after earlier this afternoon Bloomberg reported that FTX was exploring a deal, or the possibility of a deal to purchase Robinhood. But even if this is just being potentially contemplated internally at FTX, we don't know any details about what a potential acquisition would look like or what it would be valued at, even if it did happen as Bloomberg was reporting.

Now I do want to provide a little bit more context here and note that Bankman-Fried has already taken a stake in Robinhood personally. He disclosed that he'd amassed an about 7.6% stake back in May. And if some kind of deal did go through, it would mean that FTX would be scooping up Robinhood at a time when the stock is down significantly from all-time highs. Now shares have fallen nearly 50% for the year to date through today's close, although they did just have their best day in more than a month now following that Bloomberg report, guys.