(Reuters) – Former Walt Disney Co executives Kevin Mayer and Thomas Staggs plan to raise $300 million in an initial public offering for a new special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), a person familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

The duo’s first SPAC, Forest Road Acquisition Corp, agreed a three-way merger last week with fitness companies Beachbody LLC and Myx Fitness LLC that was valued at around $2.9 billion.

Former basketball star Shaquille O’Neal, who is also on the board of directors at pizza chain Papa John’s International Inc, and Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, are working for Forest Road II as a strategic advisor and a director, respectively, the source said.

Mayer and Staggs will serve as co-chief executives and co-chairmen of the new SPAC, the source said. They had worked with the first Forest Road SPAC as a strategic advisor and director, respectively.

The source requested anonymity ahead of a regulatory disclosure on the SPAC IPO.

Mayer was Disney’s top streaming executive before he left the media giant last year to become the chief executive of popular video app TikTok. He departed the company three months after joining. Staggs worked at Disney for 26 years and held various roles including chief operating officer.

SPACs are shell companies that raise funds to take a private company public. They have gained immense popularity since last year, as they allow companies to go public by eschewing traditional IPOs.

A string of high-profile SPACs have been raised in the last 12 months, including by financial investors William Ackman and Barry Sternlicht, former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan and ex-NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Source: Reuters – Former Disney executives Mayer and Staggs plan new SPAC-source

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(Reuters) – Companies raised $546 billion from new bond and share issues in January, as a flood of central bank money-printing and recovering stock markets brought record numbers of new listings, SPAC deals and share sales, Refinitiv data showed on Wednesday.

The numbers included $106.15 billion in initial public offerings (IPOs), SPACs and secondary offerings, with the amount of money raised by SPACs alone soaring 20 times to $24.26 billion from a year earlier, the data showed.

Companies also raised nearly $439.9 billion in corporate debt in January, a 5% fall since the same period last year, but still the second largest January in 25 years.

A SPAC, a shell company that raises money in an IPO before later merging with a privately held company to take the latter public, has become many investors structure of choice over the past year.

January’s haul was already 30% of a total $79 billion raised by SPACs in the whole of 2020.

Traditional IPO volumes in the United States, however, remained higher than SPACs in January, hitting a 25-year high of $33.9 billion.

Some 47% new bond and share issues were U.S. offerings in January this year, with China second with $23.96 billion.

Nasdaq was the clear winner among exchanges, with 167 issues raising $41.12 billion, followed by the New York Stock Exchange and the Hong Kong Exchange a close third, with both raking in a little more than $18 billion respectively.

That was in stark contrast to European financial hubs London and Frankfurt, which raised $4.29 billion and $1.72 billion respectively.

Chinese online video company Kuaishou Technology is the biggest IPO globally so far this year, raising $5.42 billion in Hong Kong, followed by Polish parcel locker business InPost SA which raised $3.40 billion in Amsterdam.

Source: Reuters – Global firms raise $546 billion in January as SPAC frenzy continues

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Feb 1 (Reuters) – A special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), backed by banking entrepreneur Betsy Cohen, said on Monday it is aiming to raise up to $750 million in its initial public offering on the Nasdaq.

FTAC Hera Acquisition Corp, which is seeking to identify a business target in technology or fintech sector, said in a regulatory filing that it intends to sell 75 million units at $10 each.

The blank-check company, however, said it may also pursue a combination outside of these industries. (bit.ly/2MnJtIr)

Blank-check companies are shell companies that use proceeds from an initial public offering to take private firms public. They raised more than $82 billion in IPOs in 2020, more than four times the amount raised in 2019, according to data from Dealogic.

This is the second SPAC launched by Cohen this year. FTAC Athena Acquisition Corp, another Cohen-backed blank-check company, said earlier this year it was aiming to raise up to $220 million in its IPO.

Cohen, who founded Jefferson Bank and Bancorp Inc, is one of the prominent businesswomen who have joined the SPAC frenzy. In December last year, Cohen’s FinTech Acquisition Corporation IV took boutique investment bank Perella Weinberg Partners public in a $975 million deal.

FTAC Hera plans to list its units under the symbol “HERAU”.

Citigroup and JP Morgan are the underwriters for the offering. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

Source: Reuters – Betsy Cohen-backed SPAC files for $750 mln IPO

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Jan 27 (Reuters) – A blank-check firm backed by private-equity firm The Gores Group is aiming to raise about $300 million in its initial public offering, a regulatory filing showed on Wednesday.

Gores Holdings VIII Inc, the eighth special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) launched by The Gores Group as part of this series, said it would sell 30 million units, comprising shares and warrants, priced at $10 apiece in the IPO.

A SPAC is a shell company that raises money in an IPO to merge with a privately held company, turning it into a publicly traded firm.

SPACs have emerged as a popular IPO alternative for companies, providing a path to going public with less regulatory scrutiny and more certainty over the valuation that will be attained and funds that will be raised.

United Wholesale Mortgage last year agreed to go public by merging with another Gores Group-backed SPAC, valuing the wholesale mortgage lender at $16.1 billion.

Gores Holdings VIII will list its units on the Nasdaq under the symbol “GIIXU”.

Deutsche Bank Securities is the sole underwriter for the offering.

Source: Reuters – The Gores Group-backed SPAC looks to raise $300 mln in IPO

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