BOSTON (Reuters) – Investment bank Houlihan Lokey and investment firm Saddle Point Management plan to raise $ 250 million through a blank check vehicle, according to a management filing Monday.
Houlihan joins Lazard, Moelis and Evercore in offering private companies a way to go public by teaming up with a special purpose construction company, an alternative to the first traditional public tender process banks offer bulge brackets.
Saddle Point is run by Roy Katzovicz who worked for William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management before launching his own fund, Maxima Fund I, in 2019. In March the company set up medical waste Stericycle with Saddle Point for two sets of tables.
Katzovicz will be chief executive of Advanced Merger Partners Inc.
The SPAC will “position us well to take advantage of what we believe is a global shift towards market equilibrium financing strategies that recognize the relative benefits of ‘going public’ through business mix with a blank check company, ”the filing said.
Houlihan Lokey and Saddle Point did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
There will be four independent directors – investors Bruce Zimmerman and Alejandro Santo Domingo, as well as James Ellis, a former senior academic with experience in consumer product and sales companies, and entertainment industry expert Ann Daly, who co-founded WndrCo.
Irwin Gold, Executive Chairman of Houlihan Lokey, will also be a director and chairman of the investment committee of Advanced Merger Partners, and Houlihan banker John Mavredakis will chair the board.
Some 248 SPACs raised approximately $ 83 billion through IPOs in 2020, more than the previous 5 years combined, according to SPAC Research. The pace has only gone up in 2021, with 91 SPAC IPOs completed so far to raise $ 25.8 billion.
Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss with additional recitation by Joshua Franklin; Edited by Stephen Coates