Evernorth appointed Hugo Jeandesboz as chief investment officer on its first day as a Nasdaq-listed company. Jeandesboz, formerly co-CIO of Coinbase Asset Management and previously Coinbase's lead derivatives trader, will oversee the company's treasury allocation, liquidity management, and active management of its XRP holdings.
Jeandesboz reports to founder and CEO Asheesh Birla, a former senior Ripple executive. In his announcement, Birla cited opportunities created by tokenized real-world assets and recent XRP Ledger upgrades enabling lending and decentralized finance applications.
Trading Challenges on Debut Day
XRPN shares opened October 12 and reached an intraday high of $19.39 before closing at $16.91, approximately 68% below its October 2 peak of $53. Several factors pressured the stock on its debut day. About 80.3% of eligible Armada shares were redeemed for roughly $195.39 million in cash, creating a thin public float. A correction to the share issuance figure, from 663,510 to 1,078,614 Class A shares, also triggered selling. Additionally, XRP itself fell to $1.35 on the debut day as total crypto market capitalization dropped 3.4% to roughly $2.80 trillion.
Treasury Position
Evernorth closed its merger with approximately 473 million XRP and about $300 million in gross cash. Most XRP came from Ripple, the sponsor and related party. However, about 84.37 million XRP was purchased for $214 million, at an average price of roughly $2.54 per token.
With XRP trading near $1.37, that purchased tranche is worth approximately $115.6 million, roughly 46% below cost. The company's strategy focuses on growing XRP per share through lending, liquidity provision, and other yield strategies rather than relying on XRP price appreciation alone.
