Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao Agrees to Step Down, Plead Guilty
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Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao Agrees to Step Down, Plead Guilty

Zhao’s crypto exchange will also admit wrongdoing and agree to pay $4.3 billion in fines

By DAVE MICHAELS
Wed, Nov 22, 2023 8:47amGrey Clock 3 min

The chief executive of Binance, the largest global cryptocurrency exchange, plans to step down and plead guilty to violating criminal U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements, in a deal that may preserve the company’s ability to continue operating, according to people familiar with the matter.

Changpeng Zhao is scheduled to appear in Seattle federal court Tuesday afternoon and enter his plea, according to court records unsealed Tuesday. Prosecutors also unsealed a document charging Binance, which Zhao owns, with anti-money-laundering and sanctions crimes. Binance will also plead guilty and agree to pay fines totaling $4.3 billion, which includes amounts to settle civil allegations made by regulators, the people said.

Zhao has agreed to pay a criminal fine of $50 million, although that amount may be reduced based on separate civil penalties he has agreed to pay, court records show.

The deal would end long-running investigations of Binance. Zhao founded the firm in 2017 and turned it into the most important hub of the global crypto market. The criminal probe, in particular, has shadowed the company even as its market share initially grew after the collapse last year of FTX, one of its main offshore competitors.

Executives have recently fled Binance, and the exchange has laid off a chunk of its employees this year as the company struggled to come to terms with the U.S. probes.

The deal would allow Zhao to retain his majority ownership of Binance, although he won’t be able to have an executive role at the company. He is eligible to return to working at the company three years after a court-imposed compliance monitor is appointed, court records show. He would face sentencing at a later date.

The outcome resembles an earlier case that prosecutors brought against the executives of BitMEX, an exchange for trading crypto derivatives that was based in the Seychelles. Its former CEO, Arthur Hayes, pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering law and was later sentenced to two years probation, avoiding a possible prison term of six to 12 months.

Striking a deal between the Justice Department and Binance had been elusive for months, the people said. Zhao recently hired a new lead attorney, William A. Burck of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, to represent him before the Justice Department. Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has represented Binance.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The deal to be announced on Tuesday doesn’t include a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which sued Binance and Zhao in June and alleged it violated U.S. investor-protection laws, the people said. Major crypto exchanges such as Binance have decided to litigate with the SEC, believing they can show that cryptocurrencies don’t qualify as the kinds of investments overseen by the SEC.

The Justice Department’s investigation looked at Binance’s program to detect and prevent money laundering and whether it allowed individuals in sanctioned countries, such as Iran and Russia, to trade with Americans on the exchange, the Journal previously reported.

A separate agreement would resolve a civil lawsuit filed against Binance and Zhao earlier this year by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the U.S. regulators that has tried to police the freewheeling global market, the people said. The $4.3 billion that Binance would pay includes amounts to address the CFTC’s claims and those leveled by agencies of the Treasury Department.

The CFTC claimed that Binance for years didn’t have a program to prevent and detect terrorist financing and money laundering. It also said Binance gave Americans access to derivatives such as futures or swaps that can only be traded in the U.S. if they are offered on regulated platforms. Binance never registered with U.S. regulators, making its risky leveraged products off-limits to American traders, the CFTC said.

A CFTC spokesman declined to comment.

Zhao resides in the United Arab Emirates and had curtailed his travel this year. The United Arab Emirates doesn’t have a mutual extradition treaty with the U.S., although last year the countries signed a treaty that enhances law-enforcement evidence sharing.

The U.A.E. remained welcoming to crypto even as countries such as China and the U.S. have cracked down on the unregulated industry. Zhao’s status was a sticking point in negotiations between the government and Binance for months, according to people familiar with the talks.

—Caitlin Ostroff contributed to this article.



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Impact Investing Is Turning Mainstream, Report Finds
By ABBY SCHULTZ
Wed, Oct 23, 2024 4 min

Impact investing is becoming more mainstream as larger, institutional asset owners drive more money into the sector, according to the nonprofit Global Impact Investing Network in New York.

In the GIIN’s State of the Market 2024 report, published late last month, researchers found that assets allocated to impact-investing strategies by repeat survey responders grew by a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% over the last five years.

These 71 responders to both the 2019 and 2024 surveys saw their total impact assets under management grow to US$249 billion this year from US$129 billion five years ago.

Medium- and large-size investors were largely responsible for the strong impact returns: Medium-size investors posted a median CAGR of 11% a year over the five-year period, and large-size investors posted a median CAGR of 14% a year.

Interestingly, the CAGR of assets held by small investors dropped by a median of 14% a year.

“When we drill down behind the compound annual growth of the assets that are being allocated to impact investing, it’s largely those larger investors that are actually driving it,” says Dean Hand, the GIIN’s chief research officer.

Overall, the GIIN surveyed 305 investors with a combined US$490 billion under management from 39 countries. Nearly three-quarters of the responders were investment managers, while 10% were foundations, and 3% were family offices. Development finance institutions, institutional asset owners, and companies represented most of the rest.

The majority of impact strategies are executed through private-equity, but public debt and equity have been the fastest-growing asset classes over the past five years, the report said. Public debt is growing at a CAGR of 32%, and public equity is growing at a CAGR of 19%. That compares to a CAGR of 17% for private equity and 7% for private debt.

According to the GIIN, the rise in public impact assets is being driven by larger investors, likely institutions.

Private equity has traditionally served as an ideal way to execute impact strategies, as it allows investors to select vehicles specifically designed to create a positive social or environmental impact by, for example, providing loans to smallholder farmers in Africa or by supporting fledging renewable energy technologies.

Future Returns: Preqin expects managers to rely on family offices, private banks, and individual investors for growth in the next six years

But today, institutional investors are looking across their portfolios—encompassing both private and public assets—to achieve their impact goals.

“Institutional asset owners are saying, ‘In the interests of our ultimate beneficiaries, we probably need to start driving these strategies across our assets,’” Hand says. Instead of carving out a dedicated impact strategy, these investors are taking “a holistic portfolio approach.”

An institutional manager may want to address issues such as climate change, healthcare costs, and local economic growth so it can support a better quality of life for its beneficiaries.

To achieve these goals, the manager could invest across a range of private debt, private equity, and real estate.

But the public markets offer opportunities, too. Using public debt, a manager could, for example, invest in green bonds, regional bank bonds, or healthcare social bonds. In public equity, it could invest in green-power storage technologies, minority-focused real-estate trusts, and in pharmaceutical and medical-care company stocks with the aim of influencing them to lower the costs of care, according to an example the GIIN lays out in a separate report on institutional  strategies.

Influencing companies to act in the best interests of society and the environment is increasingly being done through such shareholder advocacy, either directly through ownership in individual stocks or through fund vehicles.

“They’re trying to move their portfolio companies to actually solving some of the challenges that exist,” Hand says.

Although the rate of growth in public strategies for impact is brisk, among survey respondents investments in public debt totaled only 12% of assets and just 7% in public equity. Private equity, however, grabs 43% of these investors’ assets.

Within private equity, Hand also discerns more evidence of maturity in the impact sector. That’s because more impact-oriented asset owners invest in mature and growth-stage companies, which are favored by larger asset owners that have more substantial assets to put to work.

The GIIN State of the Market report also found that impact asset owners are largely happy with both the financial performance and impact results of their holdings.

About three-quarters of those surveyed were seeking risk-adjusted, market-rate returns, although foundations were an exception as 68% sought below-market returns, the report said. Overall, 86% reported their investments were performing in line or above their expectations—even when their targets were not met—and 90% said the same for their impact returns.

Private-equity posted the strongest results, returning 17% on average, although that was less than the 19% targeted return. By contrast, public equity returned 11%, above a 10% target.

The fact some asset classes over performed and others underperformed, shows that “normal economic forces are at play in the market,” Hand says.

Although investors are satisfied with their impact performance, they are still dealing with a fragmented approach for measuring it, the report said. “Despite this, over two-thirds of investors are incorporating impact criteria into their investment governance documents, signalling a significant shift toward formalising impact considerations in decision-making processes,” it said.

Also, more investors are getting third-party verification of their results, which strengthens their accountability in the market.

“The satisfaction with performance is nice to see,” Hand says. “But we do need to see more about what’s happening in terms of investors being able to actually track both the impact performance in real terms as well as the financial performance in real terms.”

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