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Scott Shuey · · 3 min readCake Group CEO buys ex-CTO’s stake, ending legal feud
U-Zyn Chua, the co-founder and former CTO of the Cake Group, confirmed to Tech in Asia on Monday that he has sold his remaining shares in the crypto company to CEO Julian Hosp.
Hosp’s post last week on X (formerly Twitter) seems to support this: “Chua and I just signed the agreement for me to buy over his shares. Transaction to complete on Monday!”
The CEO added that he would talk about Cake Group’s current state and plans for the future on Twitter Spaces this week. However, Hosp did not release any other statement regarding the deal and could not be reached for comment.
Cake Group founders U-Zyn Chua (left) and Julian Hosp / Photo credit: Cake Group
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, Chua told Tech in Asia that the amount was “much lower than the original deal” that he and Hosp had tentatively agreed to November 2023.
In a previous interview with Tech in Asia, Chua said that Hosp had agreed to a price of S$32 million for the ex-CTO’s shares, which represented half of the voting shares in the company, but the deal eventually fell through.
This development comes after Judicial Commissioner Alex Wong’s dismissal of the Chua’s winding-up application in April, saying there were no grounds for shuttering the crypto firm.
See also: Singapore Court dismisses bid by former CTO to liquidate Cake Group
The deal between the co-founders ends a six-month legal fight for control over the Cake Group, which is the parent company of Bake.io, a hybrid decentralized finance (DeFi) crypto exchange based in Singapore. Chua filed a lawsuit to liquidate Cake Group in December 2023.
The move followed months of in-fighting that began in November 2023, when the company was forced to lay off about 30% of its employees after revenue fell.
Cake Group, which earns from transaction fees, saw its revenue dwindle by over half to US$266 million in 2022. Profit dropped by over 5x to US$23.5 million during the same period.
Hosp and Chua had attempted to reach a deal several times but were unsuccessful.
See also: Is Cake cooked? Founder clashes, liquidation loom over crypto firm
Chua says the two sides started talking again in April, immediately after the court dismissed his liquidation suit. However, little progress was made until last week.
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U-Zyn Chua says that the final amount is “much lower than the original deal” that he and Julian Hosp had tentatively agred to last November.
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