Celsius, a Bankrupt Crypto Lending Platform, Withdraws Directives to Hire CFO Back at US$92,000 Per Month

As per a court document filed in the Southern District of New York on Friday, Celsius, an embattled lending platform, has withdrawn its motion to bring Rod Bolger back to the company, its former Chief Financial Officer, at a US$92,000 per month. This withdrawal notice came from the court just before a hearing that was scheduled for Monday to review it.

However, he previously worked with the company as a full-time employee designated as CFO; according to original motions, his base salary was US$750,000 along with a cash bonus of up to 75% of his base, which depends on his work performance. In addition to this, he had several stocks and token options, which ultimately brought his total range of income to almost US$1.3 million. The filed document also mentioned that he is officially still on the company’s payroll.

“On the 30^th of June, 2022, Mr. Bolger gave notice to the Debtors that he was voluntarily terminating his employment,” read the filing. “Following his termination notice and the terms of his Employment Agreement (as defined below), Mr. Bolger is required to give the Debtors eight weeks’ notice, which he has done, and he is continuing to serve as an employee of the Debtors.”

As the motion had been approved, it is still unclear if he would have received compensation of US$ 62,500 from the company, including a consulting fee of US$92,000 on a monthly basis. As mentioned in the filings, Bolger continued to work with Celsius, but it also mentioned that he was not authorized for any kind of severance payment.

In the original motion, the company mentioned that it needed help from Bolger as an advisor to navigate the company’s bankruptcy proceedings, as he is already familiar with the Debtors’ business. It further stated that when Bolger was working with the company, he put effort into bringing back business at a time of turbulent market volatility this year by suggesting and managing the financial aspects of the business as well as serving as a leader of the company.

Keith Suckno, an investor in Celsius, claimed in a blog post about the company titled “Get to Know Rod Bolger, Chief Financial Officer, Celsius” that Bolger has “misstated the financial condition and liquidity.” He published this blog post five days before the company put a halt on withdrawals because of extreme market conditions.

In that post, Bolger said in a print interview that the strong liquidity framework of the company, established practices around liquidity data, along with modeling was almost equivalent to the other big financial companies.

In the Celsius blog post, Bolger’s quote, “This put us in a strong position to weather the recent market turbulence and ensure that clients who needed to access their digital assets could get them free and clear.” The company stopped all its transfers and withdrawals the following Monday.

Meanwhile, Bolger was seen in Celsius’ weekly ask-me-anything show on YouTube after two days of that blog post, where he said, “We believe in transparency. The blockchain is about transparency. We are transparent. You know, my goal is for us to be regulated everywhere.”

“We have voluntarily disclosed a lot of financial information. My goal – even before we’re regulated and/or public and required to do so – is to continue building out the tools that are Basel-like…Those are the standards that basically the banks work under,” he continued.

This YouTube video was published on the 10^th of June; the company shut down its on-and-off ramps to user funds the following Monday. According to its bankruptcy filing, the company owes almost US$4.7 billion to its users.

After Bolger’s left his position as the CFO, the company appointed Chris Ferraro as the CFO of Celsius, who previously worked as the head of financial planning, analysis, and investor relations for the lending platform.

It was also mentioned in that filing that Celsius is one of the companies with over 100,000 creditors. Sam Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research is among its top 50 unsecured creditors. A few of them lent the platform cash without providing any security to back up the arrangement.

A few retail investors have filed pleas in court to aid them with some of their lost holdings in the company. Simultaneously, some of them said that their life savings had been wiped out effectively.