Ripple will no longer acquire chartered trust company Fortress Trust.
The cancelled deal comes one day after news broke that $15 million of Fortress Trust customer’s digital assets were stolen. The theft was later blamed on Retool, a third party vendor that was victim to a phishing attack.
CEO of Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse made a statement on social media: "A few weeks ago, we signed a letter of intent to acquire Fortress Trust – we’ve since made the decision not to move forward with an outright acquisition, though Ripple will remain an investor.”
Ripple announced its intention to buy Fortress Trust on September 8 for an undisclosed amount revealed to be less than the $250 million price for Metaco, which it bought earlier this year.
"The Fortress team is incredibly talented, and has built products solving real customer problems. While this outcome is different from what was originally planned, we’ll continue to support them and hope to work together in the future,” Garlinghouse commented.