Insolvency Specialist John J. Ray III

John J. Ray III (born January 1959) is an American attorney and insolvency professional.  He specializes in recovering funds from failed corporations. He was appointed CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX in the aftermath of its November 2022 collapse. He previously served as chairman of Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., a company tasked with recovering creditor funds from Enron in the wake of its accounting scandal and subsequent collapse.  He also worked on the bankruptcies of Nortel, Residential Capital, and Overseas Shipholding.

Early life and education

Ray grew up in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.  He is the son of union plumber John J. Ray Jr. and his wife Florence. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Drake University.

Career

From 1998 through 2002, Ray was the chief administrative officer and general counsel of Fruit of the Loom after the company declared chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1999.

After Enron went into chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2001, Ray was appointed the chairman of the reorganized company that recovered money for creditors. He served in that role from 2004 to 2009. Under Ray’s leadership, the company returned $828.9 million to its creditors, which Ray said was nearly 52 cents on the dollar.

Starting in 2010, Ray was the principal officer of the bankrupt Canadian telecommunications company Nortel.

In 2014, Ray was appointed as an independent board member for GT Advanced Technologies.

In 2016, Ray managed a trust which liquidated the assets of the major subprime mortgage services company Residential Capital.

When cryptocurrency company FTX declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 11, 2022, Ray was appointed to succeed Sam Bankman-Fried as the company's CEO.  Six days later, in a filing with the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Ray stated that in over 40 years of his experience in dealing with insolvencies, he had never encountered "such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here".  In addition, he stated that FTX was managed by "a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals".

According to FTX's court disclosures, the company pays Ray $1,300 per hour and a $200,000 retainer fee.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_J._Ray_III