| A New York Times investigation found that former President Donald Trump’s recent SPAC deal may have skirted securities laws and stock exchange rules, specifically the prohibition against blank-check firms listing their shares with a merger target already planned. Most SPACs take at least a year to find and merge with a target, but the SPAC merging with Trump’s media venture sewed up a deal within weeks of its IPO. Patrick Orlando, a former trader at Deutsche Bank, originally planned to take the newly formed Trump Media Group public through a different SPAC, Benessere, which raised $100 million in a January IPO. Talks between Benessere and Trump Media dated to at least March, though the SPAC’s funds were eventually deemed inadequate. Since SPACs could serve as backdoor vehicles for companies to go public without the scrutiny of a traditional listing, they aren’t supposed to have a merger planned at the time of their IPO. Read more. |
Trump SPAC Deal May Have Skirted SEC Securities Laws: Report
