Who says the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) sector collapsed? Former Disney exec Allen Weiss, Magic Johnson Enterprises exec Christina Francis, Jonathan Gordon of 1916 Enterprises and others have launched a $100 million SPAC that could create a huge chunk of the music industry.
ESH Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: Eshau) recently made its shares available on the public market. Given the uncertain economy and the failure of many different SPACs to complete purchases – see Liberty Media Acquisition Corp., Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, The Music Acquisition Corp. and SeatGeek’s failed SPAC merger — ESH has quietly scaled back its ambitions ahead of this week’s IPO.
However, in May 2022, ESH had prepared a comparatively sizable $300 million NASDAQ listing that included 30 million proposed units priced at $10 each – each with a warrant to purchase an additional share for 11, 50 US dollars, according to the competent authority SEC Filing.
In comparison, the now official IPO consists of 10 million units, valued at $10.11 each at close today and also entitled “at closing one-tenth (1/10th) of a share of our Class A common stock of our first merger,” a more recent one SEC Disclosure shows.
In addition, a closely related entity named ESH Sponsor owns 2.875 million “founder shares” and 6.32 million “warrants” (purchased at $1 per share, totaling $6.32 million) in the SPAC, as disclosed the mentioned SEC document.
Meanwhile, the timeframe for completing an acquisition in the filings has been extended from 15 to 18 months. And although Magic Johnson was listed as vice chairman in the earlier prospectus, he is no longer part of the management team, the more recent disclosure said.
However, ESH’s leadership team includes the aforementioned Allen Weiss as Chairman, Christopher Ackerley, co-founder of Ackerley Partners, Jonathan Gordon of 1916 Enterprises and Christina Francis, President of Magic Johnson Enterprises, as director-nominees, Edward Ackerley of Audiosocket as advisor, former Chesapeake Lodging Trust Chief James Francis as CEO and former Blackstone executive Jonathan Morris as CFO, to name a few.
Although ESH says it may seek to buy companies in the hospitality or sports sectors, the previously highlighted prospectus also mentions the possibility of buying “concert halls, theatres, cinemas, record labels, music and television streaming services, production companies and… Publishers” to aim for houses.”
In other acquisition news, BTS agency Hybe is reportedly taking steps to raise around $400 million to fund global investments, while reports this week revealed that Spotify had sold music collaboration platform Soundtrap back to its founders after around six years of ownership .