Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is the latest to set up a special-purpose acquisition company, which seeks to raise up to $ 287.5 million in an initial public offering.
According to a document presented to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kaepernick, the former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, who knelt during the national anthem to protest systemic racism and has not played in the NFL since 2016, is the sponsor and co-sponsor. president of Mission Advancement Corp., working in collaboration with The Najafi Cos., a privately held company.
Mission Advancement will focus on issues of racial justice and diversity and aims to acquire a consumer business with a business value of about $ 1 billion.
“The mission of the Najafi / Kaepernick partnership is to identify, acquire and advance a company with the aim of creating significant financial and social value,” the documentation said. “We believe Mr. Kaepernick’s substantial business experience combined with his long-term leadership in matters of racial equity and justice will support our success in identifying a potential target company and adding transformative value to the combined entity. ”
The presentation noted that Kaepernick has worked with global brands such as Nike NKE,
Disney DIS,
Netflix NFLX,
Apple’s 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 company’s board of directors is 100% black, indigenous and colored, and is predominantly female. Directors include Google marketing director Attica Jaques, former Apple executive Omar Johnson, and Birchbox co-founder and CEO Katia Beauchamp.
SPACs are blank verification companies that have become popular in recent years. These are essentially empty-shell companies looking for a company to acquire and make public, in a faster process than a traditional IPO. So far this year, there have been 131 SPACs that have raised $ 39.9 billion collectively, according to SPAC Research. It is already about half of SPAC as of the whole of 2020.
23andMe Inc. said last week that it will be made public through a merger with a SPAC owned by Richard Branson, and that hedge fund Elliott Management would be considering creating a SPAC.
On Tuesday, billionaire investor Sam Zell said the SPAC craze reminds him of the late 1990s. “Again it’s rampant speculation, very similar to the point boom like,” he told CNBC in an interview.
While he said SPACs can be very effective, Zell said he is concerned that many rely on unstable financial foundations.