Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is the latest company to set up a special-purpose acquisition company that wants to raise up to $ 287.5 million in an initial public offering.
According to a submission to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Kaepernick – the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who knelt down during the national anthem to protest systemic racism and has not played in the NFL since 2016 – is the co-sponsor and co-sponsor chairman of Mission Advancement Corp., which works 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 consumer business with an enterprise value of approximately $ 1 billion.
“The mission of the Najafi / Kaepernick Partnership is to identify, acquire and promote an enterprise with the aim of creating meaningful financial and social value,” the documentation said. “We believe that Mr. Kaepernick’s great business experience combined with his long-term leadership in issues of racial equality and justice will help our success in identifying a prospective target business and adding transformation value to the joint venture.”
According to the submission, Kaepernick has partnered with global brands such as Nike NKE,
Disney DIS,
Netflix NFLX,
Apple’s AAPL,
Beats by Dre, Medium, Electronic Arts EA,
Amazon’s AMZN,
Audible, and Ben & Jerry’s in recent years.
As an indication of its mission, the company’s board is 100% black, indigenous and colored, and is majority female. Directors include Google Marketing Manager Attica Jaques, former Apple CEO Omar Johnson, and Katia Beauchamp, co-founder and CEO of Birchbox.
SPACs are blank-check companies that have exploded in popularity over the past few years. These are essentially empty-shell businesses looking for a company to acquire and publish, in a process faster than a traditional stock market. So far this year, there have been 131 SPACs that, according to SPAC Research, have raised a total of $ 39.9 billion. This is already about half as many SPACs as in 2020.
23andMe Inc. said last week that it was made public via a merger with a SPAC owned by Richard Branson. Hedge fund Elliott Management is apparently considering a SPAC.
Billionaire investor Sam Zell said on Tuesday that the SPAC craze reminded him of the late 1990s. “This is again unbridled speculation, much like the dot-com boom,” he said in an interview with CNBC.
Although he said SPACs could be very effective, Zell said he was concerned that many were built on shaky financial footing.