[ad_1]
Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is the latest to set up a special purpose acquisition company, seeking to raise up to $ 287.5 million in an initial public offering.
According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kaepernick – the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who took a knee during the national anthem to protest systemic racism and did not play in the NFL since 2016 – is the co-sponsor and co-chair of Mission Advancement Corp., working in partnership with The Najafi Cos., a private equity firm.
Mission Advancement will focus on issues of racial justice and diversity, and aims to acquire a mainstream business with an enterprise value of approximately $ 1 billion.
“The mission of the Najafi / Kaepernick partnership is to identify, acquire and advance a business with the aim of creating significant financial and societal value,” the file states. “We believe that Mr. Kaepernick’s considerable business experience, combined with his long-term leadership on issues of racial equity and justice, will support our success in identifying a potential target company and adding transformational value to the merged entity.
The filing noted that Kaepernick has worked with global brands such as Nike NKE,
Dis from disney,
Netflix NFLX,
Apple AAPL,
Beats by Dre, Medium, Electronic Arts EA,
AMZN from Amazon,
Audible and Ben & Jerry’s in recent years.
As an indication of its mission, the board of directors of the company is made up of 100% Black, Indigenous and people of color, and is predominantly female. The directors include Attica Jaques, chief marketing officer of Google, former Apple executive Omar Johnson and Birchbox co-founder and CEO Katia Beauchamp.
PSPCs are blank check companies that have exploded in popularity in recent years. They are basically empty-hull companies looking for a company to acquire and go public, in a faster process than a traditional IPO. So far this year, 131 PSPCs have raised $ 39.9 billion, according to SPAC Research. That’s already about half as many PSPCs as in 2020.
23andMe Inc. said last week that it would go public through a merger with a SPAC owned by Richard Branson, and hedge fund Elliott Management would consider creating a SPAC.
Billionaire investor Sam Zell said on Tuesday that the PSPC craze reminded him of the late 1990s. “It’s still rampant speculation, just like the dot-com boom,” he told CNBC in an interview.
Although he said that PSPCs can be very effective, Zell said he was concerned that many are built on fragile financial fundamentals.
[ad_2]
Source link