The CEO of Trump-tied SPAC Digital World Acquisition is said to be personally calling small retail investors in an effort to get them to vote for an extension to take the former president’s media company public, Seeking Alpha reports.
CEO Patrick Orlando has postponed a shareholder vote multiple times on a proposal to push the merger deadline back to September 2023. The SPAC is currently facing a December deadline, but could gain an automatic three-month extension if the sponsor chooses to pump money into Digital World’s trust. With shareholder approval, no additonal deposit would be required.
Orlando has spoken of the difficulty in getting retail investors to vote on proxy matters. The SPAC needs 65% of shares outstanding to support the extension in order for the measure to pass.
Both the SPAC and Trump Media & Technology Group are the focus of federal investigations into their business practices, including whether the parties had any substantive merger discussions before the SPAC floated an IPO. Such discussions would be illegal.
Orlando and Trump have both blamed the SEC and the surrounding investigations for delaying the deal, as the SEC has yet to declare the SPAC’s S-4 effective. Read more.
