S-1 1 fs12021_williamsrowland.htm REGISTRATION STATEMENT

As filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on June 25, 2021

Registration No. 333-_______

UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

____________________

FORM S-1
REGISTRATION STATEMENT
UNDER THE
SECURITIES ACT OF 1933

____________________

WILLIAMS ROWLAND ACQUISITION CORP.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

____________________

Delaware

 

6770

 

86-2603800

(State or other jurisdiction of
incorporation or organization)

 

(Primary Standard Industrial
Classification Code Number)

 

(I.R.S. Employer
Identification Number)

450 Post Road East
Westport, CT 06880
Telephone
: (203) 353-7610

(Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number, Including Area Code, of Registrant’s Principal Executive Offices)

____________________

David B. Williams, Co-Chief Executive Officer
Jonathan D. Rowland, Co
-Chief Executive Officer
Williams Rowland Acquisition Corp.
450 Post Road East
Westport, CT 06880
Telephone
: (203) 353-7610

(Name, Address, Including Zip Code, and Telephone Number, Including Area Code, of Agent For Service)

____________________

Copies to:

Mitchell Nussbaum
Giovanni Caruso
Loeb & Loeb LLP
345 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10154
Tel: (212) 407
-4000
Fax: (212) 407
-4990

 

R. Cabell Morris, Jr.
Michael Blankenship
Winston & Strawn LLP
35 West Wacker Drive
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Telephone: (
312) 558-5600
Fa
x: (312) 558-5700

____________________

Approximate date of commencement of proposed sale to the public: As soon as practicable after the effective date of this registration statement.

If any of the securities being registered on this Form are to be offered on a delayed or continuous basis pursuant to Rule 415 under the Securities Act of 1933 check the following box. 

If this Form is filed to register additional securities for an offering pursuant to Rule 462(b) under the Securities Act, please check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. 

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(c) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. 

If this Form is a post-effective amendment filed pursuant to Rule 462(d) under the Securities Act, check the following box and list the Securities Act registration statement number of the earlier effective registration statement for the same offering. 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.

 

Large accelerated filer

 

 

Accelerated filer

 

   
   

Non-accelerated filer

 

 

Smaller reporting company

 

   
           

Emerging growth company

 

   

If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act. 

 

Table of Contents

CALCULATION OF REGISTRATION FEE

Title of Each Class of Security Being Registered

 

Amount
Being
Registered

 

Proposed
Maximum
Offering
Price per
Security
(1)

 

Proposed
Maximum
Aggregate
Offering
Price
(1)

 

Amount of
Registration
Fee

Units, each consisting of one share of common stock, $0.0001 par value, and one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant(2)

 

23,000,000 Units

 

$

10.00

 

$

230,000,000

 

$

25,093

 

Shares of common stock included as part of the units(3)

 

23,000,000 Shares

 

 

 

 

 

 

(4)

Redeemable warrants included as part of the units(4)

 

11,500,000 warrants

 

 

 

 

 

 

(4)

Total

 

 

 

 

 

 

$

230,000,000

 

$

25,093

(5)

____________

(1)      Estimated solely for the purpose of calculating the registration fee.

(2)      Includes 3,000,000 Units, consisting of 3,000,000 shares of common stock and 1,500,000 redeemable warrants, which may be issued on exercise of a 45-day option granted to the underwriters.

(3)      Pursuant to Rule 416 under the Securities Act, there are also being registered an indeterminable number of additional securities as may be issued to prevent dilution resulting from stock splits, stock dividends or similar transactions.

(4)      No fee pursuant to Rule 457(g) under the Securities Act.

(5)      Paid herewith

The Registrant hereby amends this Registration Statement on such date or dates as may be necessary to delay its effective date until the registrant shall file a further amendment which specifically states that this Registration Statement shall thereafter become effective in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or until the Registration Statement shall become effective on such date as the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting pursuant to said Section 8(a), may determine.

 

Table of Contents

The information in this prospectus is not complete and may be changed. We may not sell these securities until the registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission is effective. This prospectus is not an offer to sell these securities and it is not soliciting an offer to buy these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted.

SUBJECT TO COMPLETION, DATED JUNE 25, 2021

PRELIMINARY PROSPECTUS

$200,000,000
Williams Rowland Acquisition Corp.

20,000,000 Units

_________________________

Williams Rowland Acquisition Corp. is a newly organized blank check company formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities, which we refer to as our initial business combination. We have not selected any business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target. While we will not be limited to a particular industry or geographic region, given the experience of our management team, our acquisition and value creation strategy will focus on companies in the financial services, fintech and technology sectors.

This is an initial public offering of our securities. Each unit has an offering price of $10.00 and consists of one share of common stock and one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one share of common stock at a price of $11.50 per share, subject to adjustment, terms and limitations as described herein. Only whole warrants are exercisable. The warrants will become exercisable on the later of 30 days after the completion of our initial business combination or 12 months from the closing of this offering, and will expire five years after the completion of our initial business combination or earlier upon redemption or liquidation, as described in this prospectus. The underwriters have a 45-day option from the date of this prospectus to purchase up to 3,000,000 additional units to cover over-allotments, if any.

We will provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem all or a portion of their shares of common stock upon the completion of our initial business combination, subject to the limitations described herein. If we have not consummated an initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, we will redeem 100% of the public shares for cash, subject to applicable law and certain conditions as described herein.

Williams Rowland Sponsor LLC and Wrac Ltd (collectively, our “sponsor”), have agreed to purchase 9,900,000 warrants (or 11,100,000 warrants if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) at a price of $1.00 per warrant in a private placement to occur concurrently with the closing of this offering. These warrants, which we refer to as the “private placement warrants,” are identical to the warrants sold as part of the units in this offering, subject to limited exceptions as further described herein. Our sponsor currently owns 5,750,000 shares of common stock of which 750,000 shares are subject to forfeiture depending on the extent to which the underwriter’s over-allotment option is exercised.

Currently, there is no public market for our securities. We have applied to list our units on The New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, under the symbol “WRACU” We expect that our units will be listed on the NYSE on or promptly after the date of this prospectus. We cannot guarantee that our securities will be approved for listing on the NYSE. We expect that the common stock and warrants comprising the units will begin separate trading on the 52nd day following the date of this prospectus unless Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. the representative of the underwriters, informs us of its decision to allow earlier separate trading, subject to our satisfaction of certain conditions. Once the securities comprising the units begin separate trading, we expect that the common stock and warrants will be listed on the NYSE under the symbols “WRAC” and “WRACW” respectively.

We are an “emerging growth company” and a “smaller reporting company” under applicable federal securities laws and will be subject to reduced public company reporting requirements. Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. See “Risk Factors” beginning on page 31 for a discussion of information that should be considered in connection with an investment in our securities. Investors will not be entitled to protections normally afforded to investors in Rule 419 blank check offerings.

Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) nor any state securities commission has approved or disapproved of these securities or determined if this prospectus is truthful or complete. Any representation to the contrary is a criminal offense.

 

Per Unit

 

Total

Public offering price

 

$

10.00

 

$

200,000,000

Underwriting discounts and commissions(1)

 

$

0.55

 

$

11,000,000

Proceeds, before expenses, to us

 

$

9.45

 

$

189,000,000

____________

(1)      Includes $0.35 per unit, or $7,000,000 in the aggregate (or $8,050,000 in the aggregate if the underwriter’s over-allotment option is exercised in full), payable to the underwriters for deferred underwriting commissions to be placed in a trust account located in the United States as described herein and released to the underwriters only upon the consummation of an initial business combination. See also “Underwriting” for a description of compensation and other items of value payable to the underwriter.

Of the proceeds we receive from this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants described in this prospectus, $204,000,000, or $234,600,000 if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full ($10.20 per unit in either case), will be deposited into a trust account with Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company acting as trustee and $1,900,000 will be available to pay fees and expenses in connection with this offering and for working capital purposes following the closing of this offering.

The underwriters are offering the units on a firm commitment basis. The underwriters expect to deliver the units to purchasers on or about [              ], 2021.

Sole Book-Running Manager

Oppenheimer & Co.

[•], 2021

 

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

Page

SUMMARY

 

1

THE OFFERING

 

12

SUMMARY FINANCIAL DATA

 

30

RISK FACTORS

 

31

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

 

60

USE OF PROCEEDS

 

61

DIVIDEND POLICY

 

65

DILUTION

 

66

CAPITALIZATION

 

68

MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS

 

69

PROPOSED BUSINESS

 

75

MANAGEMENT

 

105

PRINCIPAL STOCKHOLDERS

 

114

CERTAIN RELATIONSHIPS AND RELATED PARTY TRANSACTIONS

 

116

DESCRIPTION OF SECURITIES

 

119

U.S. FEDERAL INCOME TAX CONSIDERATIONS

 

131

UNDERWRITING

 

139

LEGAL MATTERS

 

146

EXPERTS

 

146

WHERE YOU CAN FIND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

 

146

INDEX TO FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

 

F-1

We are responsible for the information contained in this prospectus. We have not authorized anyone to provide you with different information, and we take no responsibility for any other information others may give to you. We are not, and the underwriters are not, making an offer to sell these securities in any jurisdiction where the offer or sale is not permitted. You should not assume that the information contained in this prospectus is accurate as of any date other than the date on the front of this prospectus.

i

Table of Contents

SUMMARY

This summary only highlights the more detailed information appearing elsewhere in this prospectus. You should read this entire prospectus carefully, including the information under the section of this prospectus entitled “Risk Factors” and our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this prospectus, before investing. Unless otherwise stated in this prospectus, or the context otherwise requires, references to:

•        “common stock” are to our common stock $.0001 par value;

•        “founder shares” are to the 5,750,000 shares of our common stock initially purchased by our sponsor in a private placement prior to this offering (including up to an aggregate of 750,000 shares of our common stock subject to forfeiture depending on the extent to which the underwriters’ over-allotment option is not exercised in full or in part), and the shares of our common stock issued upon the conversion thereof as provided herein;

•        “initial stockholders” are to the holders of our founder shares prior to this offering (or their permitted transferees);

•        “management” or our “management team” are to our officers and directors;

•        “private placement warrants” are to the warrants to be issued to our sponsor in a private placement simultaneously with the closing of this offering and to any private placement warrants issued upon conversion of working capital loans;

•        “public shares” are to shares of our common stock sold as part of the units in this offering (whether they are purchased in this offering or thereafter in the open market);

•        “public stockholders” are to the holders of our public shares, including our initial stockholders and management team to the extent our initial stockholders and/or members of our management team purchase public shares, provided that each initial stockholder’s and member of our management team’s status as a “public stockholder” shall only exist with respect to such public shares;

•        “public warrants” are to our redeemable warrants sold as part of the units in this offering (whether they are purchased in this offering or thereafter in the open market);

•        “sponsor” are to Williams Rowland Sponsor LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and Wrac Ltd, a Guernsey company;

•        “warrants” are to our redeemable warrants, which includes the public warrants as well as the private placement warrants; and

•        “we,” “us,” “company” or “our company” are to Williams Rowland Acquisition Corp., a Delaware corporation.

Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant for each unit purchased. Each whole warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one share of our common stock at a price of $11.50 per share, subject to adjustment as described in this prospectus. No fractional warrants will be issued upon separation of the units and only whole warrants will trade. Accordingly, unless you purchase a multiple of two units, the number of warrants issuable to you upon separation of the units will be rounded down to the nearest whole number of warrants.

Unless we tell you otherwise, the information in this prospectus assumes that the underwriters will not exercise their over-allotment option.

1

Table of Contents

Our Company

General

We are a newly incorporated Delaware blank check company whose purpose is to effect a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities, which we refer to throughout this prospectus as our initial business combination. We have not selected any business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target.

We intend to leverage our deep financial and banking experience, extensive brokerage and trading background and large network of industry contacts in order to pursue opportunities with high-quality, growth companies in our focus sectors of financial services, and FinTech and technology. We are seeking a business with a strong technology offering, in a disruptive vertical, which is at the stage of scaling up and is generating revenue. We will use our experience in fundamental business analysis and company and industry due diligence to identify and assess the strengths of businesses we evaluate. Our management team averages more than 30 years of experience as investors and operators in our target segments, and also has experience on multiple public and private company boards. Further, each member of our management team has a network of talented people that helps evaluate ideas and offer a deep resource base. We are looking to acquire a company whose predominant economic activity comprises the research, development, production and/or distribution of technologies used and applied in financial services.

Our Company

David “Tiger” Williams and Jonathan Rowland are our senior sponsors and will serve as our Co-Chief Executive Officers and as members of our board of directors. Through them, we are affiliated with Williams Trading LLC and Mode Global Holdings PLC (each an “Affiliated Organization”). Williams Trading is 100% beneficially owned by Mr. Williams, its founder and Managing Member. Williams Trading is a world-class equities execution platform for institutional investors, including hedge funds, mutual funds, family offices and other asset managers. Mode Global Holdings PLC was founded by Mr. Rowland in 2015, and has launched a first-of-its-kind bitcoin app that allows users to access GBP, EUR and BTC accounts, and grow their digital assets, all in one place. Mr. Williams and Mr. Rowland will together serve as our executive leadership group (collectively, our “Executive Management”).

We believe we possess three core competitive strengths that differentiate us as we seek to complete a business combination:

i.       Experienced and entrepreneurial executives with histories of founding a number of successful companies;

ii.      A deep and complementary mix of experience and skills ideal for due diligence and transaction execution success, and a track record of driving growth and value; and

iii.     A focus on transaction opportunities within the compelling and large sectors of FinTech, software and tech-enabled services.

We believe that the greatest value we offer to a private financial services, FinTech, or technology company is our collective experience in creating, building and establishing effective business processes in young companies both before and after they become public. We believe our team’s deep and complementary experience and skills represent a unique set of qualifications that position us well for transaction execution success and post-business combination value creation.

Our Investment Focus

We will focus on companies that generate revenues from the application of technology in the financial services sector. We will look to acquire a company that is involved in activities including the following: payment systems, banking, investments, lending, insurance, software and brokerage and digital assets. We will look to acquire a Company sitting at the intersection of Financial Services and Technology, in the US, Europe or Asia, that is solving real problems for large, global markets. Our acquisition targets must have strong, scalable concepts and a highly skilled and motivated founding team with the ability to quickly scale and maximize growth to become market leaders.

2

Table of Contents

We currently intend to concentrate our efforts on a number of key target markets within the financial services and FinTech and technology industries:

Financial Services:    within financial services, we will be focused on digital wallets, banking and payments, credit and lending, asset management, and brokerage.

FinTech and Technology:    within FinTech and technology we will be focused on RegTech, digital asset and Blockchain, big data and AI, cybersecurity, and InsurTech.

Our experience lends itself well to pursuing theses platforms, but we are not required to complete our initial business combination with a business in these industries and, as a result, we may pursue a business combination outside of these industries. We expect to pursue global businesses but may also acquire a domestic company. We do not intend to acquire companies that have speculative business plans or are excessively leveraged.

Of our target industries, financial services is the largest sector by market capitalization and is ripe for disruption by technology-led challengers. Many incumbents have neglected technological innovation and have failed to retain trust from customers. Customers are increasingly accessing financial services digitally instead of bank branches or traditional ways. The shift towards mobile has only accelerated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. FinTech challengers (digital wallets, neo banks, B2B enablers) have become a global phenomenon and are beginning to capture the full traditional financial services stack, including credit, brokerage, payments, technology infrastructure, and others. We predict that they will capture significant market value from incumbent financial services players around the world. Consumer preference towards robo-advisor and low-and-no-fee digital brokers have caused the industry to provide digitized solutions through venture-backed companies. Additionally, mature companies have launched products to meet these demands, such as may be exemplified by Schwab’s Intelligent Portfolios premium account option, which provides clients with access to unlimited online financial planning and trading for a subscription fee.

The Global FinTech Market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of around 20% from 2020-2025 according to ReseachAndMarkets.com, reaching $305 billion by 2025. In the United States, FinTech challengers have over 60 million monthly active customers, surpassing number of deposit account holders of the major financial institutions. In the UK and Europe, more than 50 million customers have opened neo bank accounts, according to Finextra. Asia has been leading the way in terms of mobile wallet adoption and technology-first financial services with over 1 billion customers. The market can be segmented based on technology, service, application, deployment mode and regional analysis. Based on technology, the market can be segmented into API, AI, Blockchain and Distributed Computing. Among them, significant growth is expected to be seen in the areas of AI and Blockchain in the coming years. AI and chatbots have redefined customer service, and their expanded use should accelerate AI-oriented FinTech market growth.

Executive Management

David “Tiger” Williams is our Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer. Tiger is the Founder and Managing Member of Williams Trading LLC. Prior to founding Williams Trading, Tiger was an Associate Director at Tiger Management where he was responsible for trading the domestic equity portfolio from 1993 through 1997. Tiger began his career on Wall Street in 1987 as a member of the Principal Training Program at E. F. Hutton. In 1989, he joined First Boston as an Associate and Generalist Equity Sales Trader. In 1990, Tiger joined Needham and Co. as a Vice President and in 1991 moved to Donaldson Lufkin and Jenrette, also as a Vice President. Tiger received his Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science at Yale University in 1984 and his Master’s in Business Administration from the Stern School of Business at New York University in 1989.

Jonathan David Rowland is our Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer. A banker and entrepreneur since the mid-1990’s, he is currently Founder and Executive Chairman of Mode Global Holdings (MODE.LN), that operates Mode, a digital bank, wallet and payments platform, and Co-Founder and Non-Executive Director of Redwood Bank, a UK-based technology-driven SME commercial lender, and has more than 25 years of experience as an investor and Director of public and private companies globally. He has led many investments in Financial Services and FinTech companies, including being an early investor in ZOPA in 2005, and leading the post-crisis restructuring of Kauphting Bank Luxembourg, renamed Banque Havilland, and being the bank’s CEO between 2009 and 2013. Among public companies in which he has been involved are Jellyworks PLC, which was listed on LSE AIM in 1999 and sold eight months later to Shore Capital Plc.

3

Table of Contents

Bobby Morovati is our Chief Financial Officer. Bobby is currently serving as the Chief Financial Officer of Williams Trading LLC. Prior to joining Williams, he was Accounting Manager at Pali Capital, a boutique derivatives and fixed income firm, where he worked as a key member of the finance and accounting team on all facets of the financial and operational components of the firm during its rapid growth and expansion phase. He began his career at Pershing in 1998 as a member of the Controller’s Group. He received his Bachelor of Science in Accounting from Rutgers University.

We believe that our management team’s operating expertise, transaction experience and relationships will provide us with a substantial number of attractive potential business combination targets.

Our Independent Directors

Betsy L. Battle, is one of our independent Board nominees. She is Chief Investment Officer and Founding Partner of Lone Peak Partners and brings more than four decades of financial services and investment experience to Williams Rowland. Prior to founding Lone Peak in 2009, she was Director of Manager Selection and a member of the Management Committee at Soros Fund Management LLC, where, she managed multibillion dollar portfolios of external hedge funds for the Quantum group of funds and George Soros, and built the manager selection and due diligence processes as well as the multi-manager portfolio construction and monitoring methodologies. Prior to Soros, she held positions at Bankers Trust, Citicorp and JP Morgan, primarily as a manager in Global Sales and Trading. She currently serves on the Board of the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School Foundation, the Board of Directors of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and the President’s Council of the Peconic Land Trust. Ms. Battle received a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1976.

Tomago Collins is one of our independent Board nominees. He is Executive Vice President of Communications & Business Development, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, where he works closely with ownership and senior leaders across a multibillion-dollar portfolio of Kroenke-owned global businesses on strategy, communications and development. He also serves on multiple public and private company and non-profit boards, including Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and Republic Services Group, and was also a Board member of AutoNation from 2014-19. Mr. Collins also serves as a board member for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. Mr. Collins is a graduate of Yale University.

William C. Kunkler is one of our independent Board nominees. He has over 40 years of manufacturing and operating experience and is currently Executive Vice President of Operations for CC Industries, Inc. (CCI), a private equity firm focused on manufacturing companies and real estate investments, where he is responsible for general operating issues and investment decisions at each of CCI’s companies. He is also Vice President of Henry Crown and Company, the parent company of CCI. Prior to joining CCI in 1995, he was Executive Vice President for Marblehead Lime Company, a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corporation, and he began his career at USG Corp. as a project engineer. Mr. Kunkler has been a Director of NIBCO Inc., a manufacturer of valves and fittings based in Elkhart, Indiana, since 2004 and was a Director of Sears Holdings Corporation, a leading retailer of general merchandise, from 2009 to 2018. Mr. Kunkler received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Yale University and his Master of Management degree from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

Brent J. McIntosh is one of our independent Board nominees. Most recently Mr. McIntosh served as Under Secretary for International Affairs within the U.S. Department of the Treasury, a position he held from September 2019 through January 2021. Prior to that position, he served as the General Counsel for the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Before assuming that role in August 2017, Mr. McIntosh was a partner at the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in Washington DC where he specialized corporate and financial institutions matters, a position he held since January 2011. Mr. McIntosh holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of Michigan as well as a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School.

The past performance of our management team or that of our board of directors is not a guarantee either (i) of success with respect to any business combination we may consummate or (ii) that we will be able to identify a suitable candidate for our initial business combination. You should not rely on the historical record of our management’s performance as indicative of our future performance.

4

Table of Contents

Affiliated Organizations

Williams Trading LLC.    Williams Trading was founded in 1997 to create a world-class equities execution platform for institutional investors, including hedge funds, mutual funds, family offices and other asset managers. Today it has grown into a full-service financial services firm that provides not only state-of-the-art public equity trading solutions, but also private equity secondary market trading, investment banking and capital markets services, equity research, third party marketing and other institutional fund services. Among other innovations, Williams pioneered a team approach to trading, taking an experienced group of traders with diverse backgrounds, skill sets and relationships, and combining them with the industry’s most current trading technologies. Ultimately, Williams provides its clients — including many of the world’s most widely recognized and talented fund managers — an unsurpassed pool of trading expertise, which is often difficult to duplicate at scale for an individual fund manager. Williams Trading’s offerings in banking and capital markets, private equity secondary market trading, equity research, third party marketing and other services deliver that same level of best-in-class service to corporate issuers and institutional manager clients.

Mode Global Holdings PLC.    From its inception, Mode’s vision has been to disrupt the current financial system and redefine the way that people use financial services. To date, Mode has launched a first-of-its-kind bitcoin app that allows users to access GBP, EUR and BTC accounts, and grow their digital assets, all in one place. Mode is now aiming to further develop its offering by building a next-gen ecosystem that connects consumers and businesses, and combines the best in payments, investment, loyalty and digital assets to offer a full suite of financial services. For businesses, Mode offers marketing, e-commerce and payments services for UK companies looking to attract, engage and retain high-value customers globally. Mode is an official partner of WeChat Pay and Alipay.

Redwood Bank    Redwood Bank, a savings and loans bank that provides banking services to individuals and small businesses and was the first business-only Challenger Bank to receive a license from the Bank of England post the 2008 Global Financial crisis.

Our Target Selection Criteria

We believe the selection criteria for our initial business combination are designed to find the best private company candidates for public ownership:

1.      Public company readiness.    The company must be ready to be a public company. This does not necessarily mean having a string of profitable quarters, but we believe the company must have in place the management team, corporate culture and basic business processes durable enough to withstand the scrutiny of public markets.

2.      Potentially dominant technology, service or market position.    The company should have either a visionary new product aimed at a fast-growing market, a replacement product with overwhelming advantages that is designed to rapidly take market share from an entrenched competitor on a technical (not price) basis, or an established product that dominates its market and has a leading market share

3.      Enthusiastic customers who are willing to endorse the company and its products or capabilities to the company’s investors.

4.      Excellent employee core values, as defined by Stanford’s Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their classic book “Built to Last”, with as many of the following core values as possible:

•        Smart, tough and hardworking people

•        Truthful, concise and non-political in communication, especially about bad news

•        Objective, logical, data-driven in decision making

•        Problem solvers who take responsibility for problems and solve them skillfully and quickly

•        Committed to their company‒and vice versa, with all employees preferably being shareholders

•        Committed to each other; people who like being with their friends at work

5

Table of Contents

5.      An excellent company culture

•        A learning culture that speaks and writes precisely and embraces new ideas

•        A quality culture that demands excellence in everything it does from its most challenging product to its memos

•        A confident, but not arrogant, can-do culture that is passionate about winning and delivering results

•        A culture that respects capital as judged by its conspicuous avoidance of extravagance and effective cost control programs

6.      An excellent management team that

•        Runs the company precisely with fully deployed, written quarterly objectives, goals and deliverables

•        Leads the company by example with an exemplary work ethic demonstrated by key executives who have put in their “10,000 hours of practice,” as described by Malcom Gladwell in the book “Outliers”

•        Displays impatience with delays in new products or important company initiatives

7.      A plan to grow rapidly by taking a dominant share of a growing medium sized market versus a small share of a huge market, as explained by Peter Thiel in his book “Zero to One.”

8.      Excellent gross margin, even at moderate product volumes — with the runway to dramatically reduce costs as competitors counterattack.

9.      A plan that allows the company, at least nominally, to meet street expectations — appropriately for either milestones or financials‒for at least four quarters after becoming a public company.

Our Business Strategy

One of our business theses is that the time-proven IPO process imposes avoidable delays and costs on both new companies and investors. We believe the increase in SPAC IPO issuance and merger activity in 2020 validates a SPAC’s ability to address some of the problems with the IPO process.

Public technology investors today commonly discuss these issues surrounding a typical technology IPO scenario:

1.      Long delays in the IPO process.    Fundamental investors find it difficult to own stock in companies during their pre-revenue and/or pre-profit phases and financial services, FinTech and technology companies are typically required by the market to produce a string of revenue growth quarters with profit or near-profit before they are deemed ready to pursue an IPO. We may offer earlier access to financial services, FinTech, and technology companies that are reporting milestone achievements, as opposed to revenue or profits, but we will certainly also consider companies on the more traditional IPO track, with growing revenue on the path to profitability.

2.      No IPO stock allocation.    Many public market investors say they cannot get an allocation of a new IPO unless they enjoy preferred-customer status with one of the IPO’s sponsoring investment banks. Our mission is to offer fundamental technology investors an opportunity to take an early position in an exceptional financial services, FinTech or technology company.

3.      IPO discount.    We all have seen the share price of a new IPO jump significantly during the first few days of trading. This implied discount in the IPO price encourages early turnover of the IPO shares and forces fundamental technology investors to pay higher share prices in the aftermarket to accumulate a position.

4.      Committed Capital.    SPACs can provide committed capital, thus preventing unpredictable market conditions from delaying or disrupting the IPO process after investment of considerable time and expense.

Many companies face these issues in a typical IPO scenario:

1.      Late-stage public funding is expensive and hard to source.    In the period just prior to profitability, an emerging company often needs large amounts of working capital for more capacity or to exploit an R&D

6

Table of Contents

breakthrough. Unfortunately, this cash need is often funded with significant dilution by venture capital or high-coupon debt. We intend to bring public investment in a private company earlier, without the gauntlet of the IPO process.

2.      Pre-IPO R&D stall.    Prior to its IPO, a company is incentivized to hold down operating expense, including R&D expenses, to bolster its profitability. This may delay a second-product introduction and other investments that put the company at a disadvantage relative to its more mature competitors for a period of a year or more; i.e., for the time needed to create the string of profitable quarters often mandated by the IPO market.

3.      Low corporate visibility.    Privately held companies can certainly become prominent in the era of the unicorn, but we believe there is nothing like open debate in the market over a company’s prospects to make the public‒not to mention prospective customers and business partners‒aware of an important new company.

The use of SPACs to effect a public offering at an earlier stage of development can bring on potential new problems caused by the accelerated entry of immature companies into public markets. For our target candidate, we intend to address the following common problems and mitigate them to the best of our ability.

1.      Incomplete or inaccurate financial reports may lead to bad internal business decisions and sometimes even re-statements. We will work to install Sarbanes-Oxley-compatible internal control processes and systems in our target companies as early as possible if not already done so.

2.      Revenue over-forecasting.    The use of third-party sales funnel software is now common, but we have observed that poor quality control of the funnel data input, and the use of simplistic algorithms to create revenue estimates from sales funnel data often lead to inflated revenue predictions. We understand these problems and have available systems to help address them.

3.      Strong Risk and Governance Controls.    Risk and Governance are at the forefront of every financial regulator in the world today. Our management team has significant experience implementing and operating businesses with robust risk based controls and strong governance procedures. We prioritize strong risk and governance controls as a key area of review, if not already implemented.

4.      Poor product quality.    Quality should be a way of life in all corporate activities, not just a mathematical system to measure and eliminate product defects. For example, we view strong Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and practices as financial quality-assurance systems. Our management team has worked personally for years on developing and overseeing strong corporate-level quality systems and quality culture development.

5.      Inadequate planning often shows up in disappointing public reports, for example, as late new product launches, long product lead times, quarterly revenue misses and unanticipated competitor success. We often see immature companies plan poorly or even do no planning in some disciplines. While we certainly cannot promise to fix the list of maladies above, we can share excellent planning tools in multiple disciplines with our target companies.

We expect to leverage the full resources of our management team to help optimize business strategies, drive operational improvements and cultivate managerial talent on behalf of our initial business combination.

Our Business Process

The mission of the Williams Rowland Acquisition Corp. is to provide fundamental public investors with early access to an attractive financial services business, asset management, FinTech or supporting technology, via a SPAC investment. After our top-few target companies are identified, we will analyze their business processes, systems, and disciplines relative to what we believe is required for stable and predictable performance. Then, if the target desires to combine, we will offer our help, as well as the help of our portfolio companies that have agreed to share their best practices.

Finally, we will offer our target company consulting support from our internal and external experts. Given that strategy, some of our key directors may remain on the board of the combined company.

7

Table of Contents

Although we have not selected any business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, we are not prohibited from pursuing an initial business combination with a company that is affiliated with one or more of our officers or directors. In the event we seek to complete our initial business combination with an affiliated company, we, or a committee of our independent directors, will obtain outside opinions to assess the fairness of the combination from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or an independent accounting firm that commonly renders valuation opinions to ensure that our initial business combination is fair to our shareholders prior to their vote on our initial business combination.

Following this offering, members of our management team will directly or indirectly own our common stock and may also own our private placement warrants. This may also lead to individual conflicts of interest when we determine whether a particular target business is appropriate for our initial business combination or when we choose directors for the combined company. Any conflicts will be disclosed to shareholders prior to their vote on the initial business combination.

Our Investment Criteria

We have identified the following general criteria and guidelines that we believe are important in evaluating prospective target businesses. We will focus on these criteria and guidelines in evaluating acquisition opportunities, but we may decide to enter into our initial business combination with a target business that does not meet one or more these criteria and guidelines.

•        Companies that operate in financial services, FinTech or technology that are ripe for technological disruption or are currently undergoing fundamental transformations.    We plan to identify companies that are in the process of or have significant potential to replace a current solution or process with a more automated method. We will seek to acquire a business that is witnessing at least one or more trends, mentioned above.

•        Companies with an attractive and defensible competitive position.    We will target companies with defensible market positions that we believe offer long-term competitive advantages. These could include proprietary technology, a leading product suite, strong market share or actionable path to gain significant market share or creative use of existing technology that we believe is enduring and unique.

•        Compelling growth prospects.    We view growth as an important driver of value and will seek companies whose growth potential can generate meaningful upside through both organic growth and meaningful opportunity for add-on acquisitions.

•        Preference for business models with contractually recurring revenue.    We may focus on companies with subscription-based or otherwise recurring revenues under multi-year contracts.

•        High gross margins and significant operating leverage.    We will seek to invest in companies that we believe possess not only proven business models and sustainable competitive advantages, but also inherently profitable unit economics that will yield significant economies of scale and expanding profit margins with continued growth.

•        Low customer churn and compelling customer acquisition cost relative to lifetime customer value.    We believe the best opportunities will be companies, which have demonstrated the ability to win new customers cost effectively and retain them for long periods of time, generating a compelling return on investments in sales and marketing.

•        Strong management teams.    We will spend significant time assessing a company’s leadership and evaluating what we can do to augment and/or upgrade the team over time if needed. We have deep experience partnering with motivated, capable management teams that helps us to identify a quality target management team.

•        Accretive use of proceeds.    We will seek investment opportunities where our capital will help fund growth, not just provide shareholder liquidity. We believe it is important that our transaction will help create shareholder value by funding the development of new products, increasing investment in sales and marketing or capacity expansion.

8

Table of Contents

•        Appropriate valuations.    We will seek to be a disciplined and valuation-centric investor that will invest on terms that we believe will provide significant upside potential, while limiting downside risk.

•        Benefit from being a public company.    We intend to pursue a business combination with a company that we believe will benefit from being publicly-traded and can effectively utilize the broader access to capital and public profile that are associated with being a publicly traded company, including potential for value-expanding acquisitions and greater branding in the marketplace.

These criteria are not intended to be exhaustive. Any evaluation relating to the merits of a particular initial business combination may be based, to the extent relevant, on these general guidelines as well as other considerations, factors and criteria that our management may deem relevant. In the event that we find an opportunity that has characteristics more compelling to us than the characteristics described above, we would pursue such opportunity.

Our Acquisition Process

Our sponsor believes that conducting comprehensive due diligence on prospective investments is particularly important within the financial services and FinTech and technology industries. In evaluating a prospective initial business combination, we expect to conduct a thorough diligence review that will encompass, among other things, meetings with incumbent management and employees, document reviews, inspection of facilities, financial analyses and technology reviews, as well as a review of other information made available to us.

We are not prohibited from pursuing an initial business combination with a company that is affiliated with our sponsor, our officers, or our directors, subject to certain approvals and consents. In the event we seek to complete our initial business combination with a company that is affiliated with our sponsor, officers or directors, we, or a committee of independent directors, will obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or an independent accounting firm that our initial business combination is fair to us from a financial point of view.

Members of our management team may directly or indirectly own our securities following this offering, and accordingly, they may have a conflict of interest in determining whether a particular target business is an appropriate business with which to effectuate our initial business combination. In addition, since our initial stockholders only paid approximately $0.004 per founder share as compared to the $10.00 per unit price paid by the public stockholders, even if we complete a business combination with a company and the acquired company subsequently declines in value, our initial shareholders are still likely to realize a substantial profit while public stockholders may experience substantial losses due to a decline in market price. Further, each of our officers and directors may have a conflict of interest with respect to evaluating a particular business combination if the retention or resignation of any such officers and directors was included by a target business as a condition to any agreement with respect to our initial business combination.

We currently do not have any specific targets for an initial business combination selected. None of our officers and directors, nor has anyone on their behalf contacted or had any discussions with possible target businesses in which they directly or indirectly proposed or encouraged a potential target to consider a possible combination with us. We have not (nor has anyone on our behalf) contacted any prospective target business or had any discussions, formal or otherwise, with respect to a business combination transaction with any prospective target business.

As described in “Proposed Business — Sourcing of Potential Business Combination Targets” and “Management — Conflicts of Interest,” each of our officers and directors presently has, and any of them in the future may have additional, fiduciary, contractual or other obligations or duties to one or more other entities pursuant to which such officer or director is or will be required to present a business combination opportunity to such entities. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that we renounce our interest in any corporate opportunity offered to any director or officer unless (i) such opportunity is expressly offered to such person solely in his or her capacity as a director or officer of our company, (ii) such opportunity is one we are legally and contractually permitted to undertake and would otherwise be reasonable for us to pursue and (iii) the director or officer is permitted to refer the opportunity to us without violating another legal obligation. Accordingly, if any of our officers or directors becomes aware of a business combination opportunity which is suitable for one or more entities to which he or she has fiduciary, contractual or other obligations or duties, he or she will honor these obligations and duties to present such business combination opportunity to such entities first, and only present it to us if such entities reject the opportunity

9

Table of Contents

and he or she determines to present the opportunity to us. We do not believe, however, that the fiduciary, contractual or other obligations or duties of our officers or directors will materially affect our ability to complete our initial business combination.

Our sponsor and our officers, directors and director nominees have agreed not to participate in the formation of, or become an officer or director of, any other special purpose acquisition company with a class of securities registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, until we have entered into a definitive agreement regarding our initial business combination or we have failed to complete our initial business combination within 18 months after the closing of this offering, as such may be extended by stockholder approval.

Initial Business Combination

NYSE rules require that we must complete one or more business combinations having an aggregate fair market value of at least 80% of the value of the assets held in the trust account (excluding the deferred underwriting commissions and taxes payable on the interest earned on the trust account) at the time of our signing a definitive agreement in connection with our initial business combination. Our board of directors will make the determination as to the fair market value of our initial business combination. If our board of directors is not able to independently determine the fair market value of our initial business combination, we will obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or an independent accounting firm with respect to the satisfaction of such criteria. While we consider it unlikely that our board of directors will not be able to make an independent determination of the fair market value of our initial business combination, it may be unable to do so if it is less familiar or experienced with the business of a particular target or if there is a significant amount of uncertainty as to the value of a target’s assets or prospects.

We anticipate structuring our initial business combination either (i) in such a way so that the post-transaction company in which our public stockholders own shares will own or acquire 100% of the equity interests or assets of the target business or businesses, or (ii) in such a way so that the post-transaction company owns or acquires less than 100% of such interests or assets of the target business in order to meet certain objectives of the target management team or stockholders, or for other reasons. However, we will only complete an initial business combination if the post-transaction company owns or acquires 50% or more of the outstanding voting securities of the target or otherwise acquires a controlling interest in the target sufficient for it not to be required to register as an investment company under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended, or the “Investment Company Act”. Even if the post-transaction company owns or acquires 50% or more of the voting securities of the target, our stockholders prior to the initial business combination may collectively own a minority interest in the post-transaction company, depending on valuations ascribed to the target and us in the initial business combination. For example, we could pursue a transaction in which we issue a substantial number of new shares in exchange for all of the outstanding capital stock of a target.

In this case, we would acquire a 100% controlling interest in the target. However, as a result of the issuance of a substantial number of new shares, our stockholders immediately prior to our initial business combination could own less than a majority of our outstanding shares subsequent to our initial business combination. If less than 100% of the equity interests or assets of a target business or businesses are owned or acquired by the post-transaction company, the portion of such business or businesses that is owned or acquired is what will be taken into account for purposes of the NYSE’s 80% of net assets test. If the initial business combination involves more than one target business, the 80% of net assets test will be based on the aggregate value of all of the transactions and we will treat the target businesses together as the initial business combination for purposes of a tender offer or for seeking stockholder approval, as applicable.

Our Business Combination Process

In evaluating prospective business combinations, we expect to conduct a thorough due diligence review process that will encompass, among other things, a review of historical and projected financial and operating data, meetings with management and their advisors (if applicable), on-site inspection of facilities and assets, discussion with customers and suppliers, legal reviews and other reviews as we deem appropriate.

10

Table of Contents

We are not prohibited from pursuing our initial business combination with a company that is affiliated with our sponsor, officers or directors. In the event we seek to complete our initial business combination with a company that is affiliated with our sponsor, officers or directors, we, or a committee of independent directors, will obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or an independent accounting firm that our initial business combination is fair to our company from a financial point of view.

Each of our officers and directors presently has, and any of them in the future may have additional, fiduciary or contractual obligations to other entities pursuant to which such officer or director is or will be required to present a business combination opportunity. Accordingly, if any of our officers or directors becomes aware of a business combination opportunity, which is suitable for an entity to which he or she has then-current fiduciary or contractual obligations to present the opportunity to such entity, he or she will honor his or her fiduciary or contractual obligations to present such opportunity to such entity. We believe, however, that the fiduciary duties or contractual obligations of our officers or directors will not materially affect our ability to complete our initial business combination. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that we renounce our interest in any corporate opportunity offered to any director or officer unless such opportunity is expressly offered to such person solely in his or her capacity as a director or officer of our company and such opportunity is one we are legally and contractually permitted to undertake and would otherwise be reasonable for us to pursue, and to the extent the director or officer is permitted to refer that opportunity to us without violating another legal obligation.

Our sponsor and our officers, directors and director nominees have agreed not to participate in the formation of, or become an officer or director of, any other special purpose acquisition company with a class of securities registered under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act, until we have entered into a definitive agreement regarding our initial business combination or we have failed to complete our initial business combination within 18 months after the closing of this offering, as such may be extended by stockholder approval.

Corporate Information

Our executive offices are located at 450 Post Road East, Suite 120, Westport, CT 06880 and our telephone number is (203) 353-7600. We are an “emerging growth company,” as defined in Section 2(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), as modified by the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012, or the JOBS Act. As such, we are eligible to take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, or the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the prices of our securities may be more volatile.

In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act for complying with new or revised accounting standards. In other words, an emerging growth company can delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We intend to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period.

We will remain an emerging growth company until the earlier of (1) the last day of the fiscal year (a) following the fifth anniversary of the completion of this offering, (b) in which we have total annual gross revenue of at least $1.07 billion, or (c) in which we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer, which means the market value of our common stock that is held by non-affiliates equals or exceeds $700 million as of the prior June 30, and (2) the date on which we have issued more than $1.0 billion in non-convertible debt securities during the prior three-year period. References herein to emerging growth company will have the meaning associated with it in the JOBS Act.

Additionally, we are a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Rule 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. Smaller reporting companies may take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations, including, among other things, providing only two years of audited financial statements. We will remain a smaller reporting company until the last day of the fiscal year in which (1) the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates equals or exceeds $250 million as of the prior June 30th, or (2) our annual revenues equal or exceed $100 million during such completed fiscal year and the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates equals or exceeds $700 million as of the prior June 30.

11

Table of Contents

THE OFFERING

In deciding whether to invest in our securities, you should take into account not only the backgrounds of the members of our management team, but also the special risks we face as a blank check company and the fact that this offering is not being conducted in compliance with Rule 419 promulgated under the Securities Act. You will not be entitled to protections normally afforded to investors in Rule 419 blank check offerings. You should carefully consider these and the other risks set forth in the section of this prospectus entitled “Risk Factors.”

Securities offered

 

20,000,000 units, at $10.00 per unit, each unit consisting of:

   

•   one share of common stock; and

   

•   one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant.

Proposed NYSE symbols

 

Units: “WRACU”

   

Common Stock: “WRAC”

   

Warrants: “WRACW”

Trading commencement and
separation of common stock and
warrants

 



The units will begin trading on or promptly after the date of this prospectus. We expect the common stock and warrants comprising the units will begin separate trading on the 52nd day following the date of this prospectus unless Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. informs us of its decision to allow earlier separate trading, subject to our having filed the Current Report on Form8-K described below and having issued a press release announcing when such separate trading will begin. Once the shares of common stock and warrants commence separate trading, holders will have the option to continue to hold units or separate their units into the component securities. Holders will need to have their brokers contact our transfer agent in order to separate the units into shares of common stock and warrants. No fractional warrants will be issued upon separation of the units and only whole warrants will trade. Accordingly, unless you purchase a multiple of two units, the number of warrants issuable to you upon separation of the units will be rounded down to the nearest whole number of warrants.

   

In no event will the common stock and warrants be traded separately until we have filed a Current Report on Form 8-K with the SEC containing an audited balance sheet reflecting our receipt of the net proceeds at the closing of this offering. We will file the Current Report on Form 8-K promptly after the closing of this offering, which is anticipated to take place three business days from the date of this prospectus. If the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised following the initial filing of such Current Report on Form 8-K, a second or amended Current Report on Form 8-K will be filed to provide updated financial information to reflect the exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option.

12

Table of Contents

Units:

   

Number outstanding before this offering

 

0

Number outstanding after this offering

 

20,000,000(1)

Common stock:

   

Number outstanding before this offering

 

5,750,000 shares(2)

Number outstanding after this offering

 

25,000,000(3) shares (or 28,750,000 shares if the underwriters exercise the over-allotment option in full)

Redeemable warrants:

   

Number of private placement warrants to be sold in a private placement simultaneously with this offering

 



9,900,000

Number of warrants to be outstanding
after this offering and the private
placement

 



19,900,000 (or 22,600,000 if the underwriters exercise the over-allotment option in full)

Exercisability

 

Each whole warrant is exercisable to purchase one share of our common stock and only whole warrants are exercisable. We structured each unit to contain one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant, with each whole warrant exercisable for one share of common stock, as compared to units issued by some other similar blank check companies which contain whole warrants exercisable for one whole share, in order to reduce the dilutive effect of the warrants upon completion of an initial business combination as compared to units that each contain a warrant to purchase one whole share, thus making us, we believe, a more attractive initial business combination partner for target businesses.

Exercise price

 

$11.50 per share, subject to adjustment as described herein. In addition, if we issue additional shares of common stock or equity-linked securities for capital raising purposes in connection with the closing of our initial business combination at an issue price or effective issue price of less than $9.20 per share of common stock (with such issue price or effective issue price to be determined in good faith by our board of directors and, in the case of any such issuance to our initial stockholders or their affiliates, without taking into account any founder shares or private placement securities held by them, as applicable, prior to such issuance) (the “newly issued price”), the exercise price of the warrants will be adjusted (to the nearest cent) to be equal to 115% of the newly issued price.

____________

(1)      Assumes no exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option and the forfeiture by our sponsor of 750,000 founder shares.

(2)      Includes up to an aggregate of 750,000 shares that are subject to forfeiture by our sponsor depending on the extent to which the underwriters’ over-allotment option is not exercised in full or in part.

(3)      Comprised of 20,000,000 shares of Class A common stock issued to the public hereby and 5,000,000 founder shares. Assumes the underwriters’ over-allotment option has not been exercised and an aggregate of 750,000 shares of Class B common stock held by our sponsor have been forfeited.

13

Table of Contents

Exercise period

 

The warrants will become exercisable on the later of:

   

•        30 days after the completion of our initial business combination, or

   

•        12 months from the closing of this offering;

   

provided in each case that we have an effective registration statement under the Securities Act covering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants and a current prospectus relating to them is available (or we permit holders to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis under the circumstances specified in the warrant agreement).

   

We are not registering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants at this time. However, we have agreed that as soon as practicable, but in no event later than 15 business days after the closing of our initial business combination, we will use our best efforts to file with the SEC a registration statement covering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants and thereafter will use our best efforts to cause the same to become effective within 60 business days following the closing of our initial business combination and to maintain a current prospectus relating to those shares of common stock until the warrants expire or are redeemed, as specified in the warrant agreement. If a registration statement covering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants is not effective by the 60th business day after the closing of our initial business combination, warrantholders may, until such time as there is an effective registration statement and during any period when we will have failed to maintain an effective registration statement, exercise warrants on a “cashless basis” in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act or another exemption. If the Section 3(a)(9) exemption, or another exemption, is not available, holders will not be able to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis. In the event that holders are able to exercise their warrants on a “cashless basis,” each holder would pay the exercise price by surrendering the warrants for that number of shares of common stock equal to the quotient obtained by dividing (x) the product of the number of shares of common stock underlying the warrants, multiplied by the difference between the exercise price of the warrants and the “fair market value” (defined below) by (y) the fair market value. The “fair market value” shall mean the average last reported sale price of the common stock for the 10 trading days ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the notice of redemption is sent to the holders of warrants.

   

The warrants will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, five years after the completion of our initial business combination or earlier upon redemption or liquidation. On the exercise of any warrant, the warrant exercise price will be paid directly to us and not placed in the trust account.

14

Table of Contents

Redemption of warrants

 

Once the warrants become exercisable, we may redeem the outstanding warrants:

   

•        in whole and not in part;

   

•        at a price of $0.01 per warrant;

   

•        upon a minimum of 30 days’ prior written notice of redemption, which we refer to as the 30-day redemption period; and

   

•        if, and only if, the last reported sale price of our common stock equals or exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for stock splits, stock dividends, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30-trading day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we send the notice of redemption to the warrantholders.

   

We will not redeem the warrants unless a registration statement under the Securities Act covering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants is effective and a current prospectus relating to those shares of common stock is available throughout the 30-day redemption period, except if the warrants may be exercised on a cashless basis and such cashless exercise is exempt from registration under the Securities Act. If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may not exercise our redemption right if the issuance of shares of common stock upon exercise of the warrants is not exempt from registration or qualification under applicable state blue sky laws or we are unable to effect such registration or qualification. We will use our best efforts to register or qualify such shares of common stock under the blue sky laws of those states in which the warrants were offered by us in this offering.

   

If we call the warrants for redemption as described above, our management will have the option to require all holders that wish to exercise warrants to do so on a “cashless basis.” In determining whether to require all holders to exercise their warrants on a “cashless basis,” our management will consider, among other factors, our cash position, the number of warrants that are outstanding and the dilutive effect on our stockholders of issuing the maximum number of shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of our warrants. In such event, each holder would pay the exercise price by surrendering the warrants for that number of shares of common stock equal to the quotient obtained by dividing (x) the product of the number of shares of common stock underlying the warrants, multiplied by the difference between the exercise price of the warrants and the “fair market value” (defined below) by (y) the fair market value. The “fair market value” shall mean the average last reported sale price of the common stock for the 10 trading days ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the notice of redemption is sent to the holders of warrants. Please see the section of this prospectus entitled “Description of Securities — Redeemable Warrants — Public Stockholders’ Warrants” for additional information.

15

Table of Contents

Founder shares

 

On April 14, 2021, our sponsor purchased 5,750,000 founder shares for an aggregate purchase price of $25,000, or approximately $0.004 per share. Prior to the initial investment in the company of $25,000 by our sponsor, we had no assets, tangible or intangible. The per share purchase price of the founder shares was determined by dividing the amount of cash contributed to the company by the aggregate number of founder shares issued.

   

The number of founder shares issued was determined based on the expectation that the founder shares would represent 20% of the outstanding shares after this offering. As such, our initial stockholders will collectively own 20% of our issued and outstanding shares after this offering (assuming they do not purchase any units in this offering). Neither our sponsor nor any of our officers or directors have expressed an intention to purchase any units in this offering.

   

Up to an aggregate of 750,000 founder shares will be subject to forfeiture by our sponsor, depending on the extent to which the underwriters’ over-allotment option is not exercised in full or in part so that our initial stockholders will maintain ownership of 20% of our common stock after this offering. We will effect a stock dividend or share contribution prior to this offering should the size of the offering change, in order to maintain such ownership percentage.

   

The founder shares are identical to the shares of common stock included in the units being sold in this offering, except that:

   

•   the founder shares are subject to certain transfer restrictions, as described in more detail below;

   

•   our sponsor, officers and directors have entered into a letter agreement with us, pursuant to which they have agreed to (i) waive their redemption rights with respect to any founder shares and public shares they hold in connection with the completion of our initial business combination, (ii) waive their redemption rights with respect to any founder shares and public shares they hold in connection with a stockholder vote to approve an amendment to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (A) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (B) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity and (iii) waive their rights to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to any founder shares they hold if we fail to complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, although they will be entitled to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to any public shares they hold if we fail to complete our initial business combination within the prescribed time frame. Permitted transferees of the founder shares held by our sponsor, officers and directors would be subject to the same restrictions;

16

Table of Contents

 

•   pursuant to the letter agreement, our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed to vote any founder shares held by them and any public shares purchased during or after this offering (including in open market and privately negotiated transactions) in favor of our initial business combination. If we submit our initial business combination to our public stockholders for a vote, we will complete our initial business combination only if a majority of the outstanding shares of common stock voted are voted in favor of the initial business combination. As a result, in addition to the founder shares held by our sponsor, officers and directors, we would need only 1,250,001, or approximately 6.3%, of the 20,000,000 public shares sold in this offering to be voted in favor of an initial business combination (assuming only a quorum is present at the meeting) in order to have our initial business combination approved (assuming the over-allotment option is not exercised); and the founder shares are entitled to registration rights.

Transfer restrictions on founder
shares

 


Our initial stockholders have agreed not to transfer, assign or sell any of their founder shares until the earlier to occur of: (A) one year after the completion of our initial business combination or (B) subsequent to our initial business combination, (x) if the last reported sale price of our common stock equals or exceeds $12.00 per share (as adjusted for stock splits, stock dividends, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within any 30-trading day period commencing at least 150 days after our initial business combination, or (y) the date on which we complete a liquidation, merger, capital stock exchange or other similar transaction that results in all of our stockholders having the right to exchange their shares of common stock for cash, securities or other property (except as described herein under the section of this prospectus entitled “Principal Stockholders — Restrictions on Transfers of Founder Shares and Private Placement Warrants”). Any permitted transferees will be subject to the same restrictions with respect to any founder shares. We refer to such transfer restrictions throughout this prospectus as the lock-up.

Private placement warrants

 

Our sponsor has committed, pursuant to a written agreement, to purchase an aggregate of 9,900,000 private placement warrants (or 11,100,000 warrants if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) at a price of $1.00 per warrant in a private placement that will occur simultaneously with the closing of this offering. The private placement warrants are identical to the warrants sold as part of the units in this offering, subject to limited exceptions. A portion of the purchase price of the private placement warrants will be added to the proceeds from this offering to be held in the trust account such that at the time of closing $204,000,000 (or $234,600,000 if the underwriters exercise their over-allotment option in full) will be held in the trust account. If we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, the proceeds from the sale of the private placement warrants held in the trust account will be used to fund the redemption of our public shares (subject to the requirements of applicable law) and the private placement warrants will expire worthless.

17

Table of Contents

Transfer restrictions on private placement warrants

 


The private placement warrants (including the common stock issuable upon exercise of the private placement warrants) will not be transferable, assignable or salable until 30 days after the completion of our initial business combination (except as described under the section of this prospectus entitled “Principal Stockholders — Restrictions on Transfers of Founder Shares and Private Placement Warrants”).

Proceeds to be held in trust account

 

NYSE rules provide that at least 90% of the gross proceeds from this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants be deposited in a trust account. Of the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, $204,000,000, or $10.20 per unit ($234,600,000, or $10.20 per unit, if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full), will be placed into a trust account in the United States with Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company acting as trustee. These proceeds include $7,000,000 (or $8,050,000 if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) in deferred underwriting commissions.

   

Except with respect to interest earned on the funds held in the trust account that may be released to us to pay our franchise and income tax obligations (less up to $100,000 interest to pay dissolution expenses), the proceeds from this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants will not be released from the trust account until the earliest of (a) the completion of our initial business combination, (b) the redemption of any public shares properly submitted in connection with a stockholder vote to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (i) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (ii) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-business combination activity, and (c) the redemption of our public shares if we are unable to complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, subject to applicable law. The proceeds deposited in the trust account could become subject to the claims of our creditors, if any, which could have priority over the claims of our public stockholders.

Anticipated expenses and funding
sources

 


Except as described above with respect to the payment of taxes, unless and until we complete our initial business combination, no proceeds held in the trust account will be available for our use. The proceeds held in the trust account will be invested only in U.S. government securities with a maturity of 185 days or less or in money market funds meeting certain conditions under Rule 2a-7 under the Investment Company Act which invest only in direct U.S. government treasury obligations. We will disclose in each quarterly and annual report filed with the SEC prior to our initial business combination whether the proceeds deposited in the trust account are invested in U.S. government treasury obligations or money market

18

Table of Contents

 

funds or a combination thereof. Based upon current interest rates, we expect the trust account to generate approximately $204,000 of interest annually assuming an interest rate of 0.1% per year; however, we can provide no assurances regarding this amount. Unless and until we complete our initial business combination, we may pay our expenses only from:

   

•   the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants not held in the trust account, which will be approximately $1,000,000 in working capital after the payment of approximately $900,000 in estimated expenses relating to this offering; and

   

•   any loans or additional investments from our sponsor, members of our management team or their affiliates or other third parties, although they are under no obligation to advance funds or invest in us, and provided that any such loans will not have any claim on the proceeds held in the trust account unless such proceeds are released to us upon completion of an initial business combination.

Conditions to completing our initial business combination

 


NYSE rules require that we must complete one or more business combinations having an aggregate fair market value of at least 80% of the value of the assets held in the trust account (excluding the deferred underwriting commissions and taxes payable on the interest earned on the trust account) at the time of our signing a definitive agreement in connection with our initial business combination. Our board of directors will make the determination as to the fair market value of our initial business combination. If our board of directors is not able to independently determine the fair market value of our initial business combination, we will obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or an independent accounting firm with respect to the satisfaction of such criteria. While we consider it unlikely that our board of directors will not be able to make an independent determination of the fair market value of our initial business combination, it may be unable to do so if it is less familiar or experienced with the business of a particular target or if there is a significant amount of uncertainty as to the value of a target’s assets or prospects. There is no limitation on our ability to raise funds privately or through loans in connection with our initial business combination. We anticipate structuring our initial business combination either (i) in such a way so that the post-transaction company in which our public stockholders own shares will own or acquire 100% of the equity interests or assets of the target business or businesses, or (ii) in such a way so that the post-transaction company owns or acquires less than 100% of such interests or assets of the target business in order to meet certain objectives of the target management team or stockholders, or for other reasons. However, we will only complete an initial business combination if the post-transaction company owns or acquires 50% or more of the outstanding voting securities of the target or otherwise acquires a controlling interest in the target sufficient for it not to be required to register as an investment company under the Investment Company Act. Even if the post-transaction company owns or acquires 50% or more of the voting securities of the target, our stockholders prior to the initial business combination may collectively own a minority interest in the post-transaction company, depending on valuations ascribed to the target and us in the initial business combination. For example, we could pursue a transaction.

19

Table of Contents

 

in which we issue a substantial number of new shares in exchange for all of the outstanding capital stock of a target. In this case, we would acquire a 100% controlling interest in the target. However, as a result of the issuance of a substantial number of new shares, our stockholders immediately prior to our initial business combination could own less than a majority of our outstanding shares subsequent to our initial business combination. If less than 100% of the equity interests or assets of a target business or businesses are owned or acquired by the post-transaction company, the portion of such business or businesses that is owned or acquired is what will be taken into account for purposes of the NYSE’s 80% of net assets test. If the initial business combination involves more than one target business, the 80% of net assets test will be based on the aggregate value of all of the transactions and we will treat the target businesses together as the initial business combination for purposes of a tender offer or for seeking stockholder approval, as applicable.

Permitted purchases of public shares
and public warrants by our
affiliates

 



If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and we do not conduct redemptions in connection with our initial business combination pursuant to the tender offer rules, our initial stockholders, directors, officers, advisors or their affiliates may purchase public shares or public warrants in privately negotiated transactions or in the open market either prior to or following the completion of our initial business combination. There is no limit on the number of shares our initial stockholders, directors, officers, advisors or their affiliates may purchase in such transactions, subject to compliance with applicable law and NYSE rules. However, they have no current commitments, plans or intentions to engage in such transactions and have not formulated any terms or conditions for any such transactions. If they engage in such transactions, they will not make any such purchases when they are in possession of any material non-public information not disclosed to the seller or if such purchases are prohibited by Regulation M under the Exchange Act. We do not currently anticipate that such purchases, if any, would constitute a tender offer subject to the tender offer rules under the Exchange Act or a going-private transaction subject to the going-private rules under the Exchange Act; however, if the purchasers determine at the time of any such purchases that the purchases are subject to such rules, the purchasers will comply with such rules. Any such purchases will be reported pursuant to Section 13 and Section 16 of the Exchange Act to the extent such purchasers are subject to such reporting requirements. None of the funds held in the trust account will be used to purchase public shares or public warrants in such transactions prior to completion of our initial business combination. See “Proposed Business — Permitted purchases of our securities” for a description of how our initial stockholders, directors, officers, advisors or any of their affiliates will select which stockholders to purchase securities from in any private transaction.

   

The purpose of any such purchases of shares could be to vote such shares in favor of the initial business combination and thereby increase the likelihood of obtaining stockholder approval of the initial business combination or to satisfy a closing condition in an agreement with a target that requires us to have a minimum net worth or a certain amount of cash at the closing of our initial business combination, where it appears that such requirement would otherwise not be met. The purpose of any such purchases of public warrants could be to reduce the number of public warrants

20

Table of Contents

 

outstanding or to vote such warrants on any matters submitted to the warrantholders for approval in connection with our initial business combination. Any such purchases of our securities may result in the completion of our initial business combination that may not otherwise have been possible. In addition, if such purchases are made, the public “float” of our shares of common stock or warrants may be reduced and the number of beneficial holders of our securities may be reduced, which may make it difficult to maintain or obtain the quotation, listing or trading of our securities on a national securities exchange.

Redemption rights for public stockholders upon completion of our initial business combination

 



We will provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem all or a portion of their public shares upon the completion of our initial business combination at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account as of two business days prior to the consummation of our initial business combination, including interest earned on the funds held in the trust account and not previously released to us to pay our taxes, divided by the number of then outstanding public shares, subject to the limitations described herein. The amount in the trust account is initially anticipated to be $10.20 per public share. The per-share amount we will distribute to investors who properly redeem their shares will not be reduced by the deferred underwriting commissions we will pay to the underwriters. The redemption rights will include the requirement that a beneficial holder must identify itself in order to validly redeem its shares. There will be no redemption rights upon the completion of our initial business combination with respect to our warrants.

Our sponsor, officers and directors have entered into a letter agreement with us, pursuant to which they have agreed to waive their redemption rights with respect to any founder shares held by them and any public shares they may acquire during or after this offering in connection with the completion of our initial business combination.

   

We may require our public stockholders seeking to exercise their redemption rights, whether they are record holders or hold their shares in “street name,” to either tender their certificates to our transfer agent prior to the date set forth in the tender offer documents or proxy materials mailed to such holders, or up to two business days prior to the vote on the proposal to approve the initial business combination in the event we distribute proxy materials, or to deliver their shares to the transfer agent electronically using the Depository Trust Company’s DWAC (Deposit/Withdrawal At Custodian) System, at the holder’s option. The tender offer or proxy materials, as applicable, that we will furnish to holders of our public shares in connection with our initial business combination will indicate whether we are requiring public stockholders to satisfy such delivery requirements.

Manner of conducting redemptions

 

We will provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem all or a portion of their public shares upon the completion of our initial business combination either (i) in connection with a stockholder meeting called to approve the initial business combination or (ii) by means of a tender offer.

21

Table of Contents

 

The decision as to whether we will seek stockholder approval of a proposed initial business combination or conduct a tender offer will be made by us, solely in our discretion, and will be based on a variety of factors such as the timing of the transaction and whether the terms of the transaction would require us to seek stockholder approval under the law or stock exchange listing requirements. Under NYSE rules, asset acquisitions and stock purchases would not typically require stockholder approval while direct mergers with our company where we do not survive and any transactions where we issue more than 20% of our outstanding common stock or seek to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation would require stockholder approval. We may conduct redemptions without a stockholder vote pursuant to the tender offer rules of the SEC unless stockholder approval is required by law or stock exchange listing requirements or we choose to seek stockholder approval for business or other legal reasons. So long as we obtain and maintain a listing for our securities on the NYSE, we will be required to comply with such rules.

   

If a stockholder vote is not required and we do not decide to hold a stockholder vote for business or other legal reasons, we will, pursuant to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation:

   

•   conduct the redemptions pursuant to Rule 13e-4 and Regulation 14E of the Exchange Act, which regulate issuer tender offers, and

   

•   file tender offer documents with the SEC prior to completing our initial business combination which contain substantially the same financial and other information about the initial business combination and the redemption rights as is required under Regulation 14A of the Exchange Act, which regulates the solicitation of proxies.

   

Whether or not we maintain our registration under the Exchange Act or our listing on the NYSE, we will provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem their public shares by one of the two methods listed above. Upon the public announcement of our initial business combination, if we elect to conduct redemptions pursuant to the tender offer rules, we or our sponsor will terminate any plan established in accordance with Rule 10b5-1 to purchase shares of our common stock in the open market, in order to comply with Rule 14e-5 under the Exchange Act.

   

In the event we conduct redemptions pursuant to the tender offer rules, our offer to redeem will remain open for at least 20 business days, in accordance with Rule 14e-1(a) under the Exchange Act, and we will not be permitted to complete our initial business combination until the expiration of the tender offer period. In addition, the tender offer will be conditioned on public stockholders not tendering more than a specified number of public shares, which number will be based on the requirement that we may not redeem public shares in an amount that would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001 (so that we are not subject to the SEC’s “penny stock” rules) or any greater net tangible asset or cash requirement which may be contained in the agreement relating to our initial business combination upon consummation of our initial business combination and after payment of underwriters’ fees and commissions. If public stockholders tender more shares than we have offered to purchase, we will withdraw the tender offer and not complete the initial business combination.

22

Table of Contents

 

If, however, stockholder approval of the transaction is required by law or stock exchange listing requirements, or we decide to obtain stockholder approval for business or other legal reasons, we will:

   

•   conduct the redemptions in conjunction with a proxy solicitation pursuant to Regulation 14A of the Exchange Act, which regulates the solicitation of proxies, and not pursuant to the tender offer rules, and

   

•   file proxy materials with the SEC.

   

If we seek stockholder approval, we will complete our initial business combination only if a majority of the outstanding shares of common stock voted are voted in favor of the initial business combination. A quorum for such meeting will consist of the holders present in person or by proxy of shares of outstanding capital stock of the company representing a majority of the voting power of all outstanding shares of capital stock of the company entitled to vote at such meeting. Our initial stockholders will count towards this quorum and, pursuant to the letter agreement, our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed to vote any founder shares held by them and any public shares purchased by them during or after this offering (including in open market and privately negotiated transactions) in favor of our initial business combination. For purposes of seeking approval of the majority of our outstanding shares of common stock voted, non-votes will have no effect on the approval of our initial business combination once a quorum is obtained. As a result, in addition to the founder shares held by our sponsor, officers and directors, we would need only 1,250,001, or approximately 6.3%, of the 20,000,000 public shares sold in this offering to be voted in favor of an initial business combination (assuming only a quorum is present at the meeting) in order to have our initial business combination approved (assuming the over-allotment option is not exercised).

   

We intend to give prior written notice of any such meeting, if required, at which a vote shall be taken to approve our initial business combination. These quorum and voting thresholds, and the voting agreements of our sponsor, officers and directors may make it more likely that we will consummate our initial business combination. Each public stockholder may elect to redeem its public shares irrespective of whether they vote for or against the proposed transaction.

   

We may require our public stockholders seeking to exercise their redemption rights, whether they are record holders or hold their shares in “street name,” to either tender their certificates to our transfer agent prior to the date set forth in the tender offer documents mailed to such holders, or up to two business days prior to the vote on the proposal to approve the initial business combination in the event we distribute proxy materials, or to deliver their shares to the transfer agent electronically. We believe that this will allow our transfer agent to efficiently process any redemptions without the need for further communication or action from the redeeming public stockholders, which could delay redemptions and result in additional administrative cost. If the proposed initial business combination is not approved and we continue to search for a target company, we will promptly return any certificates delivered, or shares tendered electronically, by public stockholders who elected to redeem their shares.

23

Table of Contents

 

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that in no event will we redeem our public shares in an amount that would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001 (so that we are not subject to the SEC’s “penny stock” rules) or any greater net tangible asset or cash requirement which may be contained in the agreement relating to our initial business combination upon consummation of our initial business combination and after payment of underwriters’ fees and commissions. For example, the proposed initial business combination may require: (i) cash consideration to be paid to the target or its owners, (ii) cash to be transferred to the target for working capital or other general corporate purposes or (iii) the retention of cash to satisfy other conditions in accordance with the terms of the proposed initial business combination. In the event the aggregate cash consideration we would be required to pay for all shares of common stock that are validly submitted for redemption plus any amount required to satisfy cash conditions pursuant to the terms of the proposed initial business combination exceed the aggregate amount of cash available to us, we will not complete the initial business combination or redeem any shares, and all shares of common stock submitted for redemption will be returned to the holders thereof.

Limitation on redemption rights of stockholders holding 15% or more of the shares sold in this offering if we hold stockholder vote

 




Notwithstanding the foregoing redemption rights, if we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and we do not conduct redemptions in connection with our initial business combination pursuant to the tender offer rules, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that a public stockholder, together with any affiliate of such stockholder or any other person with whom such stockholder is acting in concert or as a “group” (as defined under Section 13 of the Exchange Act), will be restricted from redeeming its shares with respect to more than an aggregate of 15% of the shares sold in this offering, without our prior consent. We believe the restriction described above will discourage stockholders from accumulating large blocks of shares, and subsequent attempts by such holders to use their ability to redeem their shares as a means to force us or our management to purchase their shares at a significant premium to the then-current market price or on other undesirable terms. Absent this provision, a public stockholder holding more than an aggregate of 15% of the shares sold in this offering could threaten to exercise its redemption rights against an initial business combination if such holder’s shares are not purchased by us or our management at a premium to the then-current market price or on other undesirable terms. By limiting our stockholders’ ability to redeem to no more than 15% of the shares sold in this offering, we believe we will limit the ability of a small group of stockholders to unreasonably attempt to block our ability to complete our initial business combination, particularly in connection with an initial business combination with a target that requires as a closing condition that we have a minimum net worth or a certain amount of cash. However, we would not be restricting our stockholders’ ability to vote all of their shares (including all shares held by those stockholders that hold more than 15% of the shares sold in this offering) for or against our initial business combination.

24

Table of Contents

Redemption rights in connection with proposed amendments to our certificate of incorporation

 



Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that any of its provisions related to pre-business combination activity (including the requirement to deposit proceeds of this offering and the private placement of warrants into the trust account and not release such amounts except in specified circumstances, and to provide redemption rights to public stockholders as described herein) may be amended if approved by holders of 65% of our common stock entitled to vote thereon, and corresponding provisions of the trust agreement governing the release of funds from our trust account may be amended if approved by holders of 65% of our common stock entitled to vote thereon. In all other instances, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may be amended by holders of a majority of our outstanding common stock entitled to vote thereon, subject to applicable provisions of the Delaware General Corporation Law, or DGCL, or applicable stock exchange rules. Under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, we may not issue additional securities that can vote on amendments to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or on our initial business combination or that would entitle holders thereof to receive funds from the trust account. Our initial stockholders, who will collectively beneficially own 20% of our common stock upon the closing of this offering (assuming they do not purchase any units in this offering), will participate in any vote to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and/or trust agreement and will have the discretion to vote in any manner they choose.

Our sponsor, officers, and directors, have agreed, pursuant to a written agreement with us, that they will not propose any amendment to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (i) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (ii) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-business combination activity, unless we provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem their shares of common stock upon approval of any such amendment at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (which interest shall be net of taxes payable) divided by the number of then outstanding public shares. Our sponsor, officers and directors have entered into a letter agreement with us pursuant to which they have agreed to waive their redemption rights with respect to any founder shares and any public shares held by them in connection with the completion of our initial business combination.

25

Table of Contents

Release of funds in trust account
on closing of our initial business combination

 



On the completion of our initial business combination, the funds held in the trust account will be used to pay amounts due to any public stockholders who exercise their redemption rights as described above under “Redemption rights for public stockholders upon completion of our initial business combination.” We will use the remaining funds to pay the underwriters their deferred underwriting commissions, to pay all or a portion of the consideration payable to the target or owners of the target of our initial business combination and to pay other expenses associated with our initial business combination. If our initial business combination is paid for using equity or debt securities, or not all of the funds released from the trust account are used for payment of the consideration in connection with our initial business combination, we may apply the balance of the cash released to us from the trust account, for general corporate purposes, including for maintenance or expansion of operations of post-transaction businesses, the payment of principal or interest due on indebtedness incurred in completing our initial business combination, to fund the purchase of other companies or for working capital.

Redemption of public shares and distribution and liquidation if no
initial business combination

 



Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that we will have only 18 months from the closing of this offering to complete our initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination within such 18-month period, we will: (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up, (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible but not more than ten business days thereafter subject to lawfully available funds therefor, redeem 100% of the public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account including interest earned on the funds held in the trust account and not previously released to us to pay our franchise and income taxes (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses), divided by the number of then outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public stockholders’ rights as stockholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any), subject to applicable law, and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining stockholders and our board of directors, dissolve and liquidate, subject in each case to our obligations under Delaware law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. There will be no redemption rights or liquidating distributions with respect to our warrants, which will expire worthless if we fail to complete our initial business combination within the 18-month time period.

   

Our initial stockholders agreed to waive their rights to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to any founder shares held by them if we fail to complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering. However, if our initial stockholders acquire public shares in or after this offering, they will be entitled to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to such public shares if we fail to complete our initial business combination within the allotted 18-month time period.

26

Table of Contents

 

The underwriters have agreed to waive their rights to their deferred underwriting commission held in the trust account in the event we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering and, in such event, such amounts will be included with the funds held in the trust account that will be available to fund the redemption of our public shares.

Limited payments to insiders

 

There will be no finder’s fees, reimbursement, consulting fee, non-cash payments, monies in respect of any payment of a loan or other compensation paid by us to our sponsor, officers or directors, or any affiliate of our sponsor or officers prior to, or in connection with any services rendered in order to effectuate, the consummation of our initial business combination (regardless of the type of transaction that it is). However, the following payments will be made to our sponsor, officers or directors, or our or their affiliates, none of which will be made from the proceeds of this offering held in the trust account prior to the completion of our initial business combination:

   

•   Payment to an affiliate of our sponsor of $10,000 per month, for up to 18 months, for office space, utilities and secretarial and administrative support;

   

•   Reimbursement for any out-of-pocket expenses related to identifying, investigating and completing an initial business combination; and

   

•   Repayment of loans which may be made by our sponsor or an affiliate of our sponsor or certain of our officers and directors to finance transaction costs in connection with an intended initial business combination. Up to $1,000,000 of such loans may be convertible into warrants, at a price of $1.00 per warrant at the option of the lender. The warrants would be identical to the public warrants, including as to exercise price, exercisability and exercise period. The terms of such working capital loans by our sponsor or its affiliates, or our officers and directors, if any, have not been determined and no written agreements exist with respect to such loans.

   

Our audit committee will review on a quarterly basis all payments that were made to our sponsor, officers or directors, or our or their affiliates.

Audit Committee

 

We will establish and maintain an audit committee, which will be composed entirely of independent directors to, among other things, monitor compliance with the terms described above and the other terms relating to this offering. If any noncompliance is identified, then the audit committee will be charged with the responsibility to immediately take all action necessary to rectify such noncompliance or otherwise to cause compliance with the terms of this offering. For more information, see the section of this prospectus entitled “Management — Committees of the Board of Directors — Audit Committee.”

27

Table of Contents

Indemnity

 

Our sponsor has agreed that it will be liable to us if and to the extent any claims by a third party for services rendered or products sold to us, or a prospective target business with which we have entered into a written letter of intent, confidentiality or similar agreement or business combination agreement, reduce the amount of funds in the trust account to below the lesser of (i) $10.20 per public share and (ii) the actual amount per public share held in the trust account as of the date of the liquidation of the trust account, if less than $10.20 per share due to reductions in the value of the trust assets, less taxes payable, provided that such liability will not apply to any claims by a third party or prospective target business who executed a waiver of any and all rights to the monies held in the trust account (whether or not such waiver is enforceable) nor will it apply to any claims under our indemnity of the underwriters of this offering against certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act. However, we have not asked our sponsor to reserve for such indemnification obligations, nor have we independently verified whether our sponsor has sufficient funds to satisfy its indemnity obligations and believe that our sponsor’s only assets are securities of our company. Therefore, we cannot assure you that our sponsor would be able to satisfy those obligations. None of our officers or directors will indemnify us for claims by third parties including, without limitation, claims by vendors and prospective target businesses.

RISKS

Summary of Risk Factors

An investment in our securities involves a high degree of risk. The occurrence of one or more of the events or circumstances described in the section titled “Risk Factors,” alone or in combination with other events or circumstances, may materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results. In that event, the trading price of our securities could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment. Such risks include, but are not limited to:

•        We are a blank check company with no operating history and no revenues, and you have no basis on which to evaluate our ability to achieve our business objective.

•        Our public stockholders may not be afforded an opportunity to vote on our proposed initial business combination, which means we may complete our initial business combination even though a majority of our public stockholders do not support such a combination.

•        Your only opportunity to effect your investment decision regarding a potential business combination may be limited to the exercise of your right to redeem your shares from us for cash.

•        If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination, our initial stockholders and management team have agreed to vote in favor of such initial business combination, regardless of how our public stockholders vote.

•        The ability of our public stockholders to redeem their shares for cash may make our financial condition unattractive to potential business combination targets, which may make it difficult for us to enter into a business combination with a target.

•        The ability of our public stockholders to exercise redemption rights with respect to a large number of our shares may not allow us to complete the most desirable business combination or optimize our capital structure.

28

Table of Contents

•        The requirement that we complete our initial business combination within 18 months after the closing of this offering may give potential target businesses leverage over us in negotiating a business combination and may limit the time we have in which to conduct due diligence on potential business combination targets, in particular as we approach our dissolution deadline, which could undermine our ability to complete our initial business combination on terms that would produce value for our stockholders.

•        The coronavirus, or COVID-19, pandemic, including the efforts to mitigate its impact, has and may continue to have a material adverse effect on our search for a business combination, as well as any target business with which we ultimately consummate a business combination.

•        If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination, our sponsor, directors, officers, advisors or their affiliates may elect to purchase shares or warrants from public stockholders, which may influence a vote on a proposed business combination and reduce the public “float” of our securities.

•        If a stockholder fails to receive notice of our offer to redeem our public shares in connection with our initial business combination, or fails to comply with the procedures for submitting or tendering its shares, such shares may not be redeemed.

•        The securities in which we invest the funds held in the trust account could bear a negative rate of interest, which could reduce the value of the assets held in trust such that the per-share redemption amount received by public shareholders may be less than $10.20 per share.

•        You will not have any rights or interests in funds from the trust account, except under certain limited circumstances. Therefore, to liquidate your investment, you may be forced to sell your public shares or warrants, potentially at a loss.

•        The NYSE may delist our securities from trading on its exchange, which could limit investors’ ability to make transactions in our securities and subject us to additional trading restrictions.

•        You will not be entitled to protections normally afforded to investors of many other blank check companies.

•        Because of our limited resources and the significant competition for business combination opportunities, it may be more difficult for us to complete our initial business combination. If we have not completed our initial business combination within the required time period, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share, or less in certain circumstances, on our redemption of their shares, and our warrants will expire worthless.

•        If the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants not being held in the trust account are insufficient to allow us to operate for at least the 18 months following the closing of this offering, it could limit the amount of cash available to fund our search for a target business or businesses and complete our initial business combination, and we will depend on loans from our sponsor or management team to fund our search and to complete our initial business combination.

•        Past performance by our management team and their affiliates, including investments and transactions in which they have participated and businesses with which they have been associated, may not be indicative of future performance of an investment in the company.

29

Table of Contents

SUmmary Financial Data

The following table summarizes the relevant financial data for our business and should be read with our financial statements, which are included in this prospectus. We have not had any significant operations to date, so only balance sheet data is presented.

 

April 14, 2021

   

Actual

 

As Adjusted

Balance Sheet Data:

 

 

 

 

   

Working capital(1)

 

$

(25,000

)

 

198,424,380

Total assets(2)

 

$

74,380

 

 

205,424,380

Total liabilities(3)

 

$

50,000

 

 

7,000,000

Value of Class A common stock subject to redemption(4)

 

$

 

 

193,424,370

Stockholder’s equity(5)

 

$

24,380

 

 

5,000,010

____________

(1)      The “as adjusted” calculation includes $204,000,000 cash held in trust from the proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, plus $1,000,000 of cash held outside the trust account, plus $400,000 of prepaid insurance, plus $24,380 of actual stockholder’s equity at April 14, 2021, minus $7,000,000 of deferred underwriting commissions.

(2)      The “as adjusted” calculation equals $204,000,000 cash held in trust from the proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, plus $1,000,000 of cash held outside the trust account, plus $400,000 of prepaid insurance, plus $24,380 of actual stockholder’s equity at April 14, 2021.

(3)      The “as adjusted” calculation equals $7,000,000 of deferred underwriting commissions, assuming the over-allotment option is not exercised.

(4)      The “as adjusted” calculation equals the “as adjusted” total assets, less the “as adjusted” total liabilities, less the “as adjusted” stockholders’ equity, which is set to approximate the minimum net tangible assets threshold of at least $5,000,001.

(5)      The “as adjusted” calculation equals the “as adjusted” total assets, less the “as adjusted” total liabilities, less the value of shares of common stock that may be converted in connection with our initial business combination ($10.20 per share).

If our initial business combination is not completed within 18 months from the closing of this offering, the proceeds then on deposit in the trust account, including interest earned on the funds held in the trust account and not previously released to us to pay our franchise and income taxes (and less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses), will be used to fund the redemption of our public shares. Our sponsor and each of our officers and directors have entered into a letter agreement with us pursuant to which they have agreed to waive their rights to liquidating distributions from the trust account with respect to their founder shares if we fail to complete our initial business combination within such 18-month time period.

30

Table of Contents

RISK FACTORS

An investment in our securities involves a high degree of risk. You should consider carefully all of the risks described below, together with the other information contained in this prospectus, before deciding to invest in our units. If any of the following events occur, our business, financial condition and operating results may be materially adversely affected. In that event, the trading price of our securities could decline, and you could lose all or part of your investment.

Risks Relating to Our Search for, and Consummation of or Inability to Consummate, an Initial Business Combination

Our public stockholders may not be afforded an opportunity to vote on our proposed initial business combination, which means we may complete our initial business combination even though a majority of our public stockholders do not support such a combination.

We may choose not to hold a stockholder vote to approve our initial business combination unless the initial business combination would require stockholder approval under applicable law or stock exchange listing requirements or if we decide to hold a stockholder vote for business or other legal reasons. For instance, the NYSE rules currently allow us to engage in a tender offer in lieu of a stockholder meeting but would still require us to obtain stockholder approval if we were seeking to issue more than 20% of our outstanding shares to a target business as consideration in any business combination. Except as required by law, the decision as to whether we will seek stockholder approval of a proposed initial business combination or will allow stockholders to sell their shares to us in a tender offer will be made by us, solely in our discretion, and will be based on a variety of factors, such as the timing of the transaction and whether the terms of the transaction would otherwise require us to seek stockholder approval. Accordingly, we may complete our initial business combination even if holders of a majority of our public shares do not approve of the initial business combination we complete. Please see the section of this prospectus entitled “Proposed Business — Stockholders May Not Have the Ability to Approve Our Initial Business Combination” for additional information.

If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination, our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed to vote in favor of such initial business combination, regardless of how our public stockholders vote.

Pursuant to the letter agreement, our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed to vote any founder shares held by them, as well as any public shares purchased during or after this offering (including in open market and privately negotiated transactions), in favor of our initial business combination. As a result, in addition to the founder shares held by our sponsor, officers and directors, we would need only 1,250,001, or approximately 6.3% of the 20,000,000 public shares sold in this offering to be voted in favor of an initial business combination (assuming only a quorum is present at the meeting) in order to have our initial business combination approved (assuming the underwriters’ over-allotment option is not exercised). Our initial stockholders will own shares representing 20% of our outstanding shares of common stock immediately following the completion of this offering. Accordingly, if we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination, the agreement by our sponsor, officers and directors, to vote in favor of our initial business combination will increase the likelihood that we will receive the requisite stockholder approval for such initial business combination.

Our search for a business combination, and any target business with which we ultimately consummate a business combination, may be materially adversely affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the status of debt and equity markets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has adversely affected (and a significant outbreak of other infectious diseases could result in an additional widespread health crisis that could adversely affect) the economies and financial markets worldwide, and the business of any potential target business with which we consummate a business combination could be materially and adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and such other outbreak. Furthermore, we may be unable to complete a business combination if continued concerns relating to COVID-19 continue to restrict travel, limit the ability to have meetings with potential investors or result in the target company’s personnel, vendors and services providers being unavailable to negotiate and consummate a transaction in a timely manner. The extent to which COVID-19 impacts our search for a business combination will depend on future developments, which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted, including new information which may emerge concerning the severity of COVID-19 and the actions to contain COVID-19 or treat its impact, among others. If the disruptions posed by COVID-19 or other

31

Table of Contents

matters of global concern continue for an extended period of time, our ability to consummate a business combination, or the operations of a target business with which we ultimately consummate a business combination, may be materially adversely affected. In addition, our ability to consummate a transaction may be dependent on our ability to raise equity and debt financing which may be adversely impacted by COVID-19 and other events, including as a result of increased market volatility, decreased market liquidity and third-party financing being unavailable on terms acceptable to us or at all.

Your only opportunity to affect the investment decision regarding a potential business combination will be limited to the exercise of your right to redeem your shares from us for cash, unless we seek stockholder approval of the initial business combination.

At the time of your investment in us, you will not be provided with an opportunity to evaluate the specific merits or risks of our initial business combination. Since our board of directors may complete an initial business combination without seeking stockholder approval, public stockholders may not have the right or opportunity to vote on the initial business combination, unless we seek such stockholder vote.

Accordingly, if we do not seek stockholder approval, your only opportunity to affect the investment decision regarding a potential business combination may be limited to exercising your redemption rights within the period of time (which will be at least 20 business days) set forth in our tender offer documents mailed to our public stockholders in which we describe our initial business combination.

The ability of our public stockholders to redeem their shares for cash may make our financial condition unattractive to potential business combination targets, which may make it difficult for us to enter into an initial business combination with a target.

We may seek to enter into an initial business combination agreement with a prospective target that requires as a closing condition that we have a minimum net worth or a certain amount of cash. If too many public stockholders exercise their redemption rights, we would not be able to meet such closing condition and, as a result, would not be able to proceed with the initial business combination. Furthermore, in no event will we redeem our public shares in an amount that would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001 (so that we are not subject to the SEC’s “penny stock” rules) or any greater net tangible asset or cash requirement which may be contained in the agreement relating to our initial business combination upon consummation of our initial business combination and after payment of underwriters’ fees and commissions. Consequently, if accepting all properly submitted redemption requests would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001 upon consummation of our initial business combination and after payment of underwriters’ fees and commissions or such greater amount necessary to satisfy a closing condition as described above, we would not proceed with such redemption and the related business combination and may instead search for an alternate business combination. Prospective targets will be aware of these risks and, thus, may be reluctant to enter into an initial business combination with us.

The ability of our public stockholders to exercise redemption rights with respect to a large number of our shares may not allow us to complete the most desirable business combination or optimize our capital structure.

At the time we enter into an agreement for our initial business combination, we will not know how many stockholders may exercise their redemption rights, and therefore will need to structure the transaction based on our expectations as to the number of shares that will be submitted for redemption. If our initial business combination agreement requires us to use a portion of the cash in the trust account to pay the purchase price, or requires us to have a minimum amount of cash at closing, we will need to reserve a portion of the cash in the trust account to meet such requirements, or arrange for third party financing. In addition, if a larger number of shares are submitted for redemption than we initially expected, we may need to restructure the transaction to reserve a greater portion of the cash in the trust account or arrange for third party financing. Raising additional third party financing may involve dilutive equity issuances or the incurrence of indebtedness at higher than desirable levels. The above considerations may limit our ability to complete the most desirable business combination available to us or optimize our capital structure. The amount of the deferred underwriting commissions payable to the underwriters will not be adjusted for any shares that are redeemed in connection with an initial business combination. The per share amount we will distribute to stockholders who properly exercise their redemption rights will not be reduced by the deferred underwriting commission and after such redemptions, the per-share value of shares held by non-redeeming stockholders will reflect our obligation to pay the deferred underwriting commissions.

32

Table of Contents

The ability of our public stockholders to exercise redemption rights with respect to a large number of our shares could increase the probability that our initial business combination would be unsuccessful and that you would have to wait for liquidation in order to redeem your stock.

If our initial business combination agreement requires us to use a portion of the cash in the trust account to pay the purchase price, or requires us to have a minimum amount of cash at closing, the probability that our initial business combination would be unsuccessful is increased. If our initial business combination is unsuccessful, you would not receive your pro rata portion of the trust account until we liquidate the trust account. If you are in need of immediate liquidity, you could attempt to sell your stock in the open market; however, at such time our stock may trade at a discount to the pro rata amount per share in the trust account. In either situation, you may suffer a material loss on your investment or lose the benefit of funds expected in connection with our redemption until we liquidate or you are able to sell your stock in the open market.

The requirement that we complete our initial business combination within the prescribed time frame may give potential target businesses leverage over us in negotiating an initial business combination and may decrease our ability to conduct due diligence on potential business combination targets as we approach our dissolution deadline, which could undermine our ability to complete our initial business combination on terms that would produce value for our stockholders.

Any potential target business with which we enter into negotiations concerning an initial business combination will be aware that we must complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering. Consequently, such target business may obtain leverage over us in negotiating an initial business combination, knowing that if we do not complete our initial business combination with that particular target business, we may be unable to complete our initial business combination with any target business. This risk will increase as we get closer to the timeframe described above. In addition, we may have limited time to conduct due diligence and may enter into our initial business combination on terms that we would have rejected upon a more comprehensive investigation.

Because of our limited resources and the significant competition for business combination opportunities, it may be more difficult for us to complete our initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on our redemption of our public shares, or less than such amount in certain circumstances, and our warrants will expire worthless.

We expect to encounter intense competition from other entities having a business objective similar to ours, including private investors (which may be individuals or investment partnerships), other blank check companies and other entities competing for the types of businesses we intend to acquire. Many of these individuals and entities are well-established and have extensive experience in identifying and effecting, directly or indirectly, acquisitions of companies operating in or providing services to various industries. Many of these competitors possess greater technical, human and other resources or more industry knowledge than we do, and our financial resources will be relatively limited when contrasted with those of many of these competitors. While we believe there are numerous target businesses we could potentially acquire with the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, our ability to compete with respect to the acquisition of certain target businesses that are sizable will be limited by our available financial resources. This inherent competitive limitation gives others an advantage in pursuing the acquisition of certain target businesses. Furthermore, because we are obligated to pay cash for the shares of common stock which our public stockholders redeem in connection with our initial business combination, target companies will be aware that this may reduce the resources available to us for our initial business combination. This may place us at a competitive disadvantage in successfully negotiating an initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share upon our liquidation. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

33

Table of Contents

We may not be able to complete our initial business combination within the prescribed time frame, in which case we would cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up and we would redeem our public shares and liquidate, in which case our public stockholders may only receive $10.20 per share, or less than such amount in certain circumstances, and our warrants will expire worthless.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that we must complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering. We may not be able to find a suitable target business and complete our initial business combination within such time period. If we have not completed our initial business combination within such time period, we will: (i) cease all operations except for the purpose of winding up, (ii) as promptly as reasonably possible but not more than ten business days thereafter subject to lawfully available funds therefor, redeem 100% of the public shares, at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account including interest earned on the funds held in the trust account and not previously released to us to pay our taxes (less up to $100,000 of interest to pay dissolution expenses), divided by the number of then outstanding public shares, which redemption will completely extinguish public stockholders’ rights as stockholders (including the right to receive further liquidating distributions, if any), subject to applicable law, and (iii) as promptly as reasonably possible following such redemption, subject to the approval of our remaining stockholders and our board of directors, dissolve and liquidate, subject in each case to our obligations under Delaware law to provide for claims of creditors and the requirements of other applicable law. In such case, our public stockholders may only receive $10.20 per share, and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share on the redemption of their shares. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination, our sponsor, directors, officers, advisors and their affiliates may elect to purchase shares or warrants from public stockholders, which may influence a vote on a proposed initial business combination and reduce the public “float” of our common stock.

If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and we do not conduct redemptions in connection with our initial business combination pursuant to the tender offer rules, our sponsor, directors, officers, advisors or their affiliates may purchase public shares or public warrants or a combination thereof in privately negotiated transactions or in the open market either prior to or following the completion of our initial business combination, although they are under no obligation to do so. However, they have no current commitments, plans or intentions to engage in such transactions and have not formulated any terms or conditions for any such transactions. None of the funds in the trust account will be used to purchase public shares or public warrants in such transactions.

Such a purchase may include a contractual acknowledgement that such stockholder, although still the record holder of our shares is no longer the beneficial owner thereof and therefore agrees not to exercise its redemption rights. In the event that our sponsor, directors, officers, advisors or their affiliates purchase shares in privately negotiated transactions from public stockholders who have already elected to exercise their redemption rights, such selling stockholders would be required to revoke their prior elections to redeem their shares. The purpose of such purchases could be to vote such shares in favor of the initial business combination and thereby increase the likelihood of obtaining stockholder approval of the initial business combination, or to satisfy a closing condition in an agreement with a target that requires us to have a minimum net worth or a certain amount of cash at the closing of our initial business combination, where it appears that such requirement would otherwise not be met. The purpose of any such purchases of public warrants could be to reduce the number of public warrants outstanding or to vote such warrants on any matters submitted to the warrantholders for approval in connection with our initial business combination. Any such purchases of our securities may result in the completion of our initial business combination that may not otherwise have been possible. Any such purchases will be reported pursuant to Section 13 and Section 16 of the Exchange Act to the extent such purchasers are subject to such reporting requirements.

In addition, if such purchases are made, the public “float” of our common stock or public warrants and the number of beneficial holders of our securities may be reduced, possibly making it difficult to obtain or maintain the quotation, listing or trading of our securities on a national securities exchange.

34

Table of Contents

If a stockholder fails to receive notice of our offer to redeem our public shares in connection with our initial business combination, or fails to comply with the procedures for tendering its shares, such shares may not be redeemed.

We will comply with the tender offer rules or proxy rules, as applicable, when conducting redemptions in connection with our initial business combination. Despite our compliance with these rules, if a stockholder fails to receive our tender offer or proxy materials, as applicable, such stockholder may not become aware of the opportunity to redeem its shares. In addition, proxy materials or tender offer documents, as applicable, that we will furnish to holders of our public shares in connection with our initial business combination will describe the various procedures that must be complied with in order to validly tender or redeem public shares. For example, we may require our public stockholders seeking to exercise their redemption rights, whether they are record holders or hold their shares in “street name,” to either tender their certificates to our transfer agent prior to the date set forth in the tender offer documents mailed to such holders, or up to two business days prior to the vote on the proposal to approve the initial business combination in the event we distribute proxy materials, or to deliver their shares to the transfer agent electronically. In the event that a stockholder fails to comply with these or any other procedures, its shares may not be redeemed. See the section of this prospectus entitled “Proposed Business — Redemption Rights for Public Stockholders upon Completion of our Initial Business Combination — Tendering Stock Certificates in Connection with a Tender Offer or Redemption Rights.”

You will not have any rights or interests in funds from the trust account, except under certain limited circumstances. To liquidate your investment, therefore, you may be forced to sell your public shares or warrants, potentially at a loss.

Our public stockholders will be entitled to receive funds from the trust account only upon the earliest to occur of: (i) our completion of an initial business combination, and then only in connection with those shares of common stock that such stockholder properly elected to redeem, subject to the limitations described herein, (ii) the redemption of any public shares properly submitted in connection with a stockholder vote to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (A) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (B) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity and (iii) the redemption of our public shares if we are unable to complete an initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, subject to applicable law and as further described herein. In no other circumstances will a public stockholder have any right or interest of any kind in the trust account. Holders of warrants will not have any right to the proceeds held in the trust account with respect to the warrants. Accordingly, to liquidate your investment, you may be forced to sell your public shares or warrants, potentially at a loss.

If the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants not being held in the trust account are insufficient, it could limit the amount available to fund our search for a target business or businesses and complete our initial business combination and we will depend on loans from our sponsor or management team to fund our search for an initial business combination, to pay our taxes and to complete our initial business combination. If we are unable to obtain these loans, we may be unable to complete our initial business combination.

Of the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, we estimate that only approximately $1,000,000 will be available to us initially outside the trust account to fund our working capital requirements. In the event that our offering expenses exceed our estimate of $900,000, we may fund such excess with funds not to be held in the trust account. In such case, the amount of funds we intend to be held outside the trust account would decrease by a corresponding amount. The amount held in the trust account will not be impacted as a result of such increase or decrease. Conversely, in the event that the offering expenses are less than our estimate of $900,000, the amount of funds we intend to be held outside the trust account would increase by a corresponding amount. If we are required to seek additional capital, we would need to borrow funds from our sponsor, management team or other third parties to operate or may be forced to liquidate. None of our sponsor, members of our management team nor any of their affiliates is under any obligation to advance funds to us in such circumstances. Any such advances would be repaid only from funds held outside the trust account or from funds released to us upon completion of our initial business combination. Up to $1,000,000 of such loans may be convertible into private placement-equivalent warrants at a price of $1.00 per warrant at the option of the lender. Prior to the completion of our initial business combination, we do not expect to seek loans from parties other than our sponsor or an affiliate of our sponsor as we do not believe third parties will be willing to loan such funds and provide a waiver against any and all rights to seek access to funds in

35

Table of Contents

our trust account. If we are unable to obtain these loans, we may be unable to complete our initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination because we do not have sufficient funds available to us, we will be forced to cease operations and liquidate the trust account. Consequently, our public stockholders may only receive approximately $10.20 per share on our redemption of our public shares, and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share on the redemption of their shares. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

If the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants not being held in the trust account are insufficient to allow us to operate for at least the next 18 months, we may be unable to complete our initial business combination, in which case our public stockholders may only receive $10.20 per share, or less than such amount in certain circumstances, and our warrants will expire worthless.

The funds available to us outside of the trust account may not be sufficient to allow us to operate for at least the next 18 months, assuming that our initial business combination is not completed during that time. We believe that, upon the closing of this offering, the funds available to us outside of the trust account will be sufficient to allow us to operate for at least the next 18 months; however, we cannot assure you that our estimate is accurate. Of the funds available to us, we could use a portion of the funds available to us to pay fees to consultants to assist us with our search for a target business. We could also use a portion of the funds as a down payment or to fund a “no-shop” provision (a provision in letters of intent or merger agreements designed to keep target businesses from “shopping” around for transactions with other companies on terms more favorable to such target businesses) with respect to a particular proposed initial business combination, although we do not have any current intention to do so. If we entered into a letter of intent or merger agreement where we paid for the right to receive exclusivity from a target business and were subsequently required to forfeit such funds (whether as a result of our breach or otherwise), we might not have sufficient funds to continue searching for, or conduct due diligence with respect to, a target business. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share upon our liquidation. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

If we are deemed to be an investment company under the Investment Company Act, we may be required to institute burdensome compliance requirements and our activities may be restricted, which may make it difficult for us to complete our initial business combination.

If we are deemed to be an investment company under the Investment Company Act, our activities may be restricted, including:

•        restrictions on the nature of our investments; and

•        restrictions on the issuance of securities, each of which may make it difficult for us to complete our initial business combination.

In addition, we may have imposed upon us burdensome requirements, including:

•        registration as an investment company;

•        adoption of a specific form of corporate structure; and

•        reporting, record keeping, voting, proxy and disclosure requirements and other rules and regulations.

In order not to be regulated as an investment company under the Investment Company Act, unless we can qualify for an exclusion, we must ensure that we are engaged primarily in a business other than investing, reinvesting or trading in securities and that our activities do not include investing, reinvesting, owning, holding or trading “investment securities” constituting more than 40% of our total assets (exclusive of U.S. government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis. Our business will be to identify and complete an initial business combination and thereafter to operate the post-transaction business or assets for the long term. We do not plan to buy businesses or assets with a view to resale or profit from their resale. We do not plan to buy unrelated businesses or assets or to be a passive investor.

36

Table of Contents

We do not believe that our anticipated principal activities will subject us to the Investment Company Act. To this end, the proceeds held in the trust account may only be invested in United States “government securities” within the meaning of Section 2(a)(16) of the Investment Company Act having a maturity of 185 days or less or in money market funds meeting certain conditions under Rule 2a-7 promulgated under the Investment Company Act which invest only in direct U.S. government treasury obligations. Pursuant to the trust agreement, the trustee is not permitted to invest in other securities or assets. By restricting the investment of the proceeds to these instruments, and by having a business plan targeted at acquiring and growing businesses for the long term (rather than on buying and selling businesses in the manner of a merchant bank or private equity fund), we intend to avoid being deemed an “investment company” within the meaning of the Investment Company Act. This offering is not intended for persons who are seeking a return on investments in government securities or investment securities. The trust account is intended as a holding place for funds pending the earliest to occur of: (i) the completion of our initial business combination; (ii) the redemption of any public shares properly submitted in connection with a stockholder vote to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (A) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (B) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity; or (iii) absent an initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering, our return of the funds held in the trust account to our public stockholders as part of our redemption of the public shares. If we do not invest the proceeds as discussed above, we may be deemed to be subject to the Investment Company Act. If we were deemed to be subject to the Investment Company Act, compliance with these additional regulatory burdens would require additional expenses for which we have not allotted funds and may hinder our ability to complete an initial business combination or may result in our liquidation. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless.

Because we must furnish our stockholders with target business financial statements, we may lose the ability to complete an otherwise advantageous initial business combination with some prospective target businesses.

The federal proxy rules require that a proxy statement with respect to a vote on an initial business combination meeting certain financial significance tests include historical and/or pro forma financial statement disclosure in periodic reports. We will include the same financial statement disclosure in connection with our tender offer documents, whether or not they are required under the tender offer rules. These financial statements may be required to be prepared in accordance with, or be reconciled to, accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America, or GAAP, or international financial reporting standards as issued by the International Accounting Standards Board, or IFRS, depending on the circumstances and the historical financial statements may be required to be audited in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States), or PCAOB. These financial statement requirements may limit the pool of potential target businesses we may acquire because some targets may be unable to provide such financial statements in time for us to disclose such statements in accordance with federal proxy rules and complete our initial business combination within the prescribed time frame.

Because we are neither limited to evaluating a target business in a particular industry sector nor have we selected any specific target businesses with which to pursue our initial business combination, you will be unable to ascertain the merits or risks of any particular target business’s operations.

We will seek to complete a business combination with an industrial technology business, but may also pursue acquisition opportunities in other industries, except that we will not, under our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, be permitted to effectuate our initial business combination with another blank check company or similar company with nominal operations. Because we have not yet selected any specific target business with respect to a business combination, there is no basis to evaluate the possible merits or risks of any particular target business’s operations, results of operations, cash flows, liquidity, financial condition or prospects. To the extent we complete our initial business combination, we may be affected by numerous risks inherent in the business operations with which we combine. For example, if we combine with a financially unstable business or an entity lacking an established record of sales or earnings, we may be affected by the risks inherent in the business and operations of a financially unstable or a development stage entity. Although our officers and directors will endeavor to evaluate the risks inherent in a particular target business, we cannot assure you that we will properly ascertain or assess all of the significant risk factors or that we will have adequate time to complete due diligence. Furthermore, some of these risks may be outside of our control and leave us with no ability to control or reduce the chances that those risks will adversely

37

Table of Contents

impact a target business. We also cannot assure you that an investment in our units will ultimately prove to be more favorable to investors than a direct investment, if such opportunity were available, in a business combination target. Accordingly, any stockholders who choose to remain stockholders following our initial business combination could suffer a reduction in the value of their securities. Such stockholders are unlikely to have a remedy for such reduction in value unless they are able to successfully claim that the reduction was due to the breach by our officers or directors of a duty of care or other fiduciary duty owed to them, or if they are able to successfully bring a private claim under securities laws that the proxy solicitation or tender offer materials, as applicable, relating to the business combination contained an actionable material misstatement or material omission.

Although we have identified general criteria and guidelines that we believe are important in evaluating prospective target businesses, we may enter into our initial business combination with a target that does not meet such criteria and guidelines, and as a result, the target business with which we enter into our initial business combination may not have attributes entirely consistent with our general criteria and guidelines.

Although we have identified general criteria and guidelines for evaluating prospective target businesses, it is possible that a target business with which we enter into our initial business combination will not have all of these positive attributes. If we complete our initial business combination with a target that does not meet some or all of these guidelines, such combination may not be as successful as a combination with a business that does meet all of our general criteria and guidelines. In addition, if we announce a prospective business combination with a target that does not meet our general criteria and guidelines, a greater number of stockholders may exercise their redemption rights, which may make it difficult for us to meet any closing condition with a target business that requires us to have a minimum net worth or a certain amount of cash. In addition, if stockholder approval of the transaction is required by law, or we decide to obtain stockholder approval for business or other legal reasons, it may be more difficult for us to attain stockholder approval of our initial business combination if the target business does not meet our general criteria and guidelines. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share on the redemption of their shares. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

Resources could be wasted in researching business combinations that are not completed, which could materially adversely affect subsequent attempts to locate and acquire or merge with another business. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share, or less than such amount in certain circumstances, on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless.

We anticipate that the investigation of each specific target business and the negotiation, drafting and execution of relevant agreements, disclosure documents and other instruments will require substantial management time and attention and substantial costs for accountants, attorneys, consultants and others. If we decide not to complete a specific initial business combination, the costs incurred up to that point for the proposed transaction likely would not be recoverable. Furthermore, if we reach an agreement relating to a specific target business, we may fail to complete our initial business combination for any number of reasons including those beyond our control. Any such event will result in a loss to us of the related costs incurred which could materially adversely affect subsequent attempts to locate and acquire or merge with another business. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless. In certain circumstances, our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share on the redemption of their shares. See “— If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share” and other risk factors below.

We may seek business combination opportunities with a financially unstable business or an entity lacking an established record of revenue, cash flow or earnings, which could subject us to volatile revenues, cash flows or earnings or difficulty in retaining key personnel.

To the extent we complete our initial business combination with a financially unstable business or an entity lacking an established record of revenues or earnings, we may be affected by numerous risks inherent in the operations of the business with which we combine. These risks include volatile revenues or earnings and difficulties in obtaining and retaining key personnel. Although our officers and directors will endeavor to evaluate the risks inherent in a

38

Table of Contents

particular target business, we may not be able to properly ascertain or assess all of the significant risk factors and we may not have adequate time to complete due diligence. Furthermore, some of these risks may be outside of our control and leave us with no ability to control or reduce the chances that those risks will adversely impact a target business.

We are not required to obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm or from an independent accounting firm, and consequently, you may have no assurance from an independent source that the price we are paying for the business is fair to our company from a financial point of view.

Unless we complete our initial business combination with an affiliated entity or our board cannot independently determine the fair market value of the target business or businesses, we are not required to obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or from an independent accounting firm that the price we are paying is fair to our company from a financial point of view. If no opinion is obtained, our stockholders will be relying on the judgment of our board of directors, who will determine fair market value based on standards generally accepted by the financial community. Such standards used will be disclosed in our proxy materials or tender offer documents, as applicable, related to our initial business combination.

Risks Related to the Post-Business Combination Company

Subsequent to the completion of our initial business combination, we may be required to take write-downs or write-offs, restructuring and impairment or other charges that could have a significant negative effect on our financial condition, results of operations and our stock price, which could cause you to lose some or all of your investment.

Even if we conduct extensive due diligence on a target business with which we combine, we cannot assure you that this diligence will surface all material issues that may be present inside a particular target business, that it would be possible to uncover all material issues through a customary amount of due diligence, or that factors outside of the target business and outside of our control will not later arise. As a result of these factors, we may be forced to later write-down or write-off assets, restructure our operations, or incur impairment or other charges that could result in our reporting losses. Even if our due diligence successfully identifies certain risks, unexpected risks may arise and previously known risks may materialize in a manner not consistent with our preliminary risk analysis. Even though these charges may be non-cash items and not have an immediate impact on our liquidity, the fact that we report charges of this nature could contribute to negative market perceptions about us or our securities. In addition, charges of this nature may cause us to violate net worth or other covenants to which we may be subject as a result of assuming pre-existing debt held by a target business or by virtue of our obtaining debt financing to partially finance the initial business combination. Accordingly, any stockholders who choose to remain stockholders following the initial business combination could suffer a reduction in the value of their shares. Such stockholders are unlikely to have a remedy for such reduction in value unless they are able to successfully claim that the reduction was due to the breach by our officers or directors of a duty of care or other fiduciary duty owed to them, or if they are able to successfully bring a private claim under securities laws that the proxy solicitation or tender offer materials, as applicable, relating to the initial business combination constituted an actionable material misstatement or omission.

We may issue additional common stock or preferred stock to complete our initial business combination or under an employee incentive plan after completion of our initial business combination. Any such issuances would dilute the interest of our stockholders and likely present other risks.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will authorize the issuance of up to 100,000,000 shares of common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, and 1,000,000 shares of preferred stock, par value $0.0001 per share. Immediately after this offering, there will be 55,100,000 authorized but unissued shares of common stock available for issuance, which amount takes into account the shares of common stock reserved for issuance upon exercise of outstanding warrants.

We may issue a substantial number of additional shares of common or preferred stock to complete our initial business combination or under an employee incentive plan after completion of our initial business combination (although our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that we may not issue securities that can vote with common stockholders on matters related to our pre-initial business combination activity). However, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide, among other things, that prior to our initial business combination, we may not issue additional shares of capital stock that would entitle the holders thereof to (i) receive

39

Table of Contents

funds from the trust account or (ii) vote on any initial business combination. These provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, like all provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation, may be amended with the approval of our stockholders. However, our officers and directors has agreed, pursuant to a written agreement with us, that they will not propose any amendment to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (A) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (B) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity, unless we provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem their shares of common stock upon approval of any such amendment at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, including interest (which interest shall be net of taxes payable, if any), divided by the number of then outstanding public shares.

The issuance of additional shares of common or preferred stock:

•        may significantly dilute the equity interest of investors in this offering;

•        may subordinate the rights of holders of common stock if preferred stock is issued with rights senior to those afforded our common stock;

•        could cause a change of control if a substantial number of shares of our common stock are issued, which may affect, among other things, our ability to use our net operating loss carry forwards, if any, and could result in the resignation or removal of our present officers and directors; and

•        may adversely affect prevailing market prices for our units, common stock and/or warrants.

We may have a limited ability to assess the management of a prospective target business and, as a result, may effect our initial business combination with a target business whose management may not have the skills, qualifications or abilities to manage a public company, which could, in turn, negatively impact the value of our stockholders’ investment in us.

When evaluating the desirability of effecting our initial business combination with a prospective target business, our ability to assess the target business’s management may be limited due to a lack of time, resources or information. Our assessment of the capabilities of the target’s management, therefore, may prove to be incorrect and such management may lack the skills, qualifications or abilities we suspected. Should the target’s management not possess the skills, qualifications or abilities necessary to manage a public company, the operations and profitability of the post-combination business may be negatively impacted. Accordingly, any stockholders who choose to remain stockholders following the initial business combination could suffer a reduction in the value of their shares. Such stockholders are unlikely to have a remedy for such reduction in value.

We may issue notes or other debt securities, or otherwise incur substantial debt, to complete an initial business combination, which may adversely affect our leverage and financial condition and thus negatively impact the value of our stockholders’ investment in us.

Although we have no commitments as of the date of this prospectus to issue any notes or other debt securities, or to otherwise incur outstanding debt following this offering, we may choose to incur substantial debt to complete our initial business combination. We have agreed that we will not incur any indebtedness unless we have obtained from the lender a waiver of any right, title, interest or claim of any kind in or to the monies held in the trust account. As such, no issuance of debt will affect the per-share amount available for redemption from the trust account. Nevertheless, the incurrence of debt could have a variety of negative effects, including:

•        default and foreclosure on our assets if our operating revenues after an initial business combination are insufficient to repay our debt obligations;

•        acceleration of our obligations to repay the indebtedness even if we make all principal and interest payments when due if we breach certain covenants that require the maintenance of certain financial ratios or reserves without a waiver or renegotiation of that covenant;

•        our immediate payment of all principal and accrued interest, if any, if the debt security is payable on demand;

40

Table of Contents

•        our inability to obtain necessary additional financing if the debt security contains covenants restricting our ability to obtain such financing while the debt security is outstanding;

•        our inability to pay dividends on our common stock;

•        using a substantial portion of our cash flow to pay principal and interest on our debt, which will reduce the funds available for dividends on our common stock if declared, our ability to pay expenses, make capital expenditures and acquisitions, and fund other general corporate purposes;

•        limitations on our flexibility in planning for and reacting to changes in our business and in the industry in which we operate;

•        increased vulnerability to adverse changes in general economic, industry and competitive conditions and adverse changes in government regulation;

•        limitations on our ability to borrow additional amounts for expenses, capital expenditures, acquisitions, debt service requirements, and execution of our strategy; and

•        other disadvantages compared to our competitors who have less debt.

We may only be able to complete one business combination with the proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, which will cause us to be solely dependent on a single business which may have a limited number of services and limited operating activities. This lack of diversification may negatively impact our operating results and profitability.

Of the net proceeds from this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants, $201,900,000 (or $231,900,000 if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) will be available to complete our initial business combination and pay related fees and expenses (which includes $7,000,000 or up to $8,050,000 if the over-allotment option is exercised in full, for the payment of deferred underwriting commissions).

We may effectuate our initial business combination with a single target business or multiple target businesses simultaneously or within a short period of time. However, we may not be able to effectuate our initial business combination with more than one target business because of various factors, including the existence of complex accounting issues and the requirement that we prepare and file pro forma financial statements with the SEC that present operating results and the financial condition of several target businesses as if they had been operated on a combined basis. By completing our initial business combination with only a single entity, our lack of diversification may subject us to numerous economic, competitive and regulatory developments. Further, we would not be able to diversify our operations or benefit from the possible spreading of risks or offsetting of losses, unlike other entities which may have the resources to complete several business combinations in different industries or different areas of a single industry. In addition, we intend to focus our search for an initial business combination in a single industry.

Accordingly, the prospects for our success may be:

•        solely dependent upon the performance of a single business, property or asset, or

•        dependent upon the development or market acceptance of a single or limited number of products, processes or services.

This lack of diversification may subject us to numerous economic, competitive and regulatory risks, any or all of which may have a substantial adverse impact upon the particular industry in which we may operate subsequent to our initial business combination.

We may attempt to simultaneously complete business combinations with multiple prospective targets, which may hinder our ability to complete our initial business combination and give rise to increased costs and risks that could negatively impact our operations and profitability.

If we determine to simultaneously acquire several businesses that are owned by different sellers, we will need for each of such sellers to agree that our purchase of its business is contingent on the simultaneous closings of the other business combinations, which may make it more difficult for us, and delay our ability, to complete our initial business combination. We do not, however, intend to purchase multiple businesses in unrelated industries in conjunction with

41

Table of Contents

our initial business combination. With multiple business combinations, we could also face additional risks, including additional burdens and costs with respect to possible multiple negotiations and due diligence investigations (if there are multiple sellers) and the additional risks associated with the subsequent assimilation of the operations and services or products of the acquired companies in a single operating business. If we are unable to adequately address these risks, it could negatively impact our profitability and results of operations.

We may attempt to complete our initial business combination with a private company about which little information is available, which may result in an initial business combination with a company that is not as profitable as we suspected, if at all.

In pursuing our initial business combination strategy, we may seek to effectuate our initial business combination with a privately held company. Very little public information generally exists about private companies, and we could be required to make our decision on whether to pursue a potential initial business combination on the basis of limited information, which may result in an initial business combination with a company that is not as profitable as we suspected, if at all.

Our management may not be able to maintain control of a target business after our initial business combination.

We may structure an initial business combination so that the post-transaction company in which our public stockholders own shares will own less than 100% of the equity interests or assets of a target business, but we will only complete such business combination if the post-transaction company owns or acquires 50% or more of the outstanding voting securities of the target or otherwise acquires a controlling interest in the target sufficient for us not to be required to register as an investment company under the Investment Company Act. We will not consider any transaction that does not meet such criteria. Even if the post-transaction company owns 50% or more of the voting securities of the target, our stockholders prior to the initial business combination may collectively own a minority interest in the post business combination company, depending on valuations ascribed to the target and us in the initial business combination. For example, we could pursue a transaction in which we issue a substantial number of new shares of common stock in exchange for all of the outstanding capital stock of a target. In this case, we would acquire a 100% interest in the target. However, as a result of the issuance of a substantial number of new shares of common stock, our stockholders immediately prior to such transaction could own less than a majority of our outstanding shares of common stock subsequent to such transaction. In addition, other minority stockholders may subsequently combine their holdings resulting in a single person or group obtaining a larger share of the company’s stock than we initially acquired. Accordingly, this may make it more likely that our management will not be able to maintain our control of the target business. We cannot provide assurance that, upon loss of control of a target business, new management will possess the skills, qualifications or abilities necessary to profitably operate such business.

We may be unable to obtain additional financing to complete our initial business combination or to fund the operations and growth of a target business, which could compel us to restructure or abandon a particular business combination.

We have not selected any specific business combination target but intend to target businesses larger than we could acquire with the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants. As a result, we may be required to seek additional financing to complete such proposed initial business combination. We cannot assure you that such financing will be available on acceptable terms, if at all. To the extent that additional financing proves to be unavailable when needed to complete our initial business combination, we would be compelled to either restructure the transaction or abandon that particular business combination and seek an alternative target business candidate. Further, the amount of additional financing we may be required to obtain could increase as a result of future growth capital needs for any particular transaction, the depletion of the available net proceeds in search of a target business, the obligation to repurchase for cash a significant number of shares from stockholders who elect redemption in connection with our initial business combination and/or the terms of negotiated transactions to purchase shares in connection with our initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may receive only approximately $10.20 per share plus any pro rata interest earned on the funds held in the trust account and not previously released to us to pay our taxes on the liquidation of our trust account and our warrants will expire worthless. In addition, even if we do not need additional financing to complete our initial business combination, we may require such financing to fund the operations or growth of the target business. The failure to secure additional financing could have a material adverse effect on the continued development or growth of the target business. None of our officers, directors or stockholders is required to provide any financing to us in connection with or after our initial business combination. If we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public stockholders may only receive approximately $10.20

42

Table of Contents

per share on the liquidation of our trust account, and our warrants will expire worthless. Furthermore, as described in the risk factor entitled “If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share,” under certain circumstances our public stockholders may receive less than $10.20 per share upon the liquidation of the trust account.

If we effect our initial business combination with a company with operations or opportunities outside of the United States, we would be subject to a variety of additional risks that may negatively impact our operations.

If we effect our initial business combination with a company with operations or opportunities outside of the United States, we would be subject to any special considerations or risks associated with companies operating in an international setting, including any of the following:

•        higher costs and difficulties inherent in managing cross-border business operations and complying with different commercial and legal requirements of overseas markets;

•        rules and regulations regarding currency redemption;

•        complex corporate withholding taxes on individuals;

•        laws governing the manner in which future business combinations may be effected;

•        tariffs and trade barriers;

•        regulations related to customs and import/export matters;

•        longer payment cycles and challenges in collecting accounts receivable;

•        tax issues, including but not limited to tax law changes and variations in tax laws as compared to the United States;

•        currency fluctuations and exchange controls;

•        rates of inflation;

•        cultural and language differences;

•        employment regulations;

•        changes in industry, regulatory or environmental standards within the jurisdictions where we operate;

•        crime, strikes, riots, civil disturbances, terrorist attacks, natural disasters and wars;

•        deterioration of political relations with the United States; and

•        government appropriations of assets.

We may not be able to adequately address these additional risks. If we were unable to do so, our operations might suffer, which may adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.

Risks Relating to Our Securities

The NYSE may delist our securities from trading on its exchange, which could limit investors’ ability to make transactions in our securities and subject us to additional trading restrictions.

We have applied to have our units listed on the NYSE. We expect that our units will be listed on the NYSE on or promptly after the date of this prospectus. Following the date the shares of our common stock and warrants are eligible to trade separately, we anticipate that the shares of our common stock and warrants will be separately listed on the NYSE. We cannot guarantee that our securities will be approved for listing on the NYSE. Although after giving effect to this offering we expect to meet, on a pro forma basis, the minimum initial listing standards set forth in the NYSE listing standards, we cannot assure you that our securities will be, or will continue to be, listed on the NYSE in the future or prior to our initial business combination. In order to continue listing our securities on the NYSE prior to our initial business combination, we must maintain certain financial, distribution and stock price levels. Generally, we must

43

Table of Contents

maintain a minimum market capitalization (generally $50,000,000) and a minimum number of holders of our securities (generally 400 public holders). Additionally, in connection with our initial business combination, we will be required to demonstrate compliance with NYSE’s initial listing requirements, which are more rigorous than the NYSE’s continued listing requirements, in order to continue to maintain the listing of our securities on the NYSE. For instance, our stock price would generally be required to be at least $4.00 per share, our stockholders’ equity would generally be required to be at least $4.0 million. We cannot assure you that we will be able to meet those initial listing requirements at that time.

If the NYSE delists our securities from trading on its exchange and we are not able to list our securities on another national securities exchange, we expect our securities could be quoted on an over-the-counter market. If this were to occur, we could face significant material adverse consequences, including:

•        a limited availability of market quotations for our securities;

•        reduced liquidity for our securities;

•        a determination that our common stock is a “penny stock” which will require brokers trading in our common stock to adhere to more stringent rules and possibly result in a reduced level of trading activity in the secondary trading market for our securities;

•        a limited amount of news and analyst coverage; and

•        a decreased ability to issue additional securities or obtain additional financing in the future.

The National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996, which is a federal statute, prevents or preempts the states from regulating the sale of certain securities, which are referred to as “covered securities.” Because we expect that our units and eventually our common stock and warrants will be listed on the NYSE, our units, common stock and warrants will be covered securities. Although the states are preempted from regulating the sale of our securities, the federal statute does allow the states to investigate companies if there is a suspicion of fraud, and, if there is a finding of fraudulent activity, then the states can regulate or bar the sale of covered securities in a particular case. While we are not aware of a state having used these powers to prohibit or restrict the sale of securities issued by blank check companies, other than the State of Idaho, certain state securities regulators view blank check companies unfavorably and might use these powers, or threaten to use these powers, to hinder the sale of securities of blank check companies in their states. Further, if we were no longer listed on the NYSE, our securities would not be covered securities and we would be subject to regulation in each state in which we offer our securities, including in connection with our initial business combination.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will require, to the fullest extent permitted by law, that derivative actions brought in our name, actions against our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders for breach of fiduciary duty and other similar actions may be brought only in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware and, if brought outside of Delaware, the stockholder bringing the suit will be deemed to have consented to service of process on such stockholder’s counsel, which may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will require, to the fullest extent permitted by law, that derivative actions brought in our name, actions against our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders for breach of fiduciary duty and other similar actions may be brought only in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware and, if brought outside of Delaware, the stockholder bringing the suit will be deemed to have consented to service of process on such stockholder’s counsel except any action (A) as to which the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware determines that there is an indispensable party not subject to the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery (and the indispensable party does not consent to the personal jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery within ten days following such determination), (B) which is vested in the exclusive jurisdiction of a court or forum other than the Court of Chancery, (C) for which the Court of Chancery does not have subject matter jurisdiction, or (D) any action arising under the Securities Act, as to which the Court of Chancery and the federal district court for the District of Delaware shall have concurrent jurisdiction. Any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our capital stock shall be deemed to have notice of and consented to the forum provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. This choice of forum provision may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or any of our directors, officers, other employees or stockholders, which may discourage lawsuits with respect to such claims, although our stockholders will not be

44

Table of Contents

deemed to have waived our compliance with federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder. However, there is no assurance that a court would enforce the choice of forum provision contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. If a court were to find such provision to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that the exclusive forum provision will be applicable to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law. Section 27 of the Exchange Act creates exclusive federal jurisdiction over all suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or the rules and regulations thereunder. As a result, the exclusive forum provision will not apply to suits brought to enforce any duty or liability created by the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

The determination of the offering price of our units and the size of this offering is more arbitrary than the pricing of securities and size of an offering of an operating company in a particular industry. You may have less assurance, therefore, that the offering price of our units properly reflects the value of such units than you would have in a typical offering of an operating company.

Prior to this offering there has been no public market for any of our securities. The public offering price of the units and the terms of the warrants were negotiated between us and the underwriters. In determining the size of this offering, management held customary organizational meetings with representatives of the underwriters, both prior to our inception and thereafter, with respect to the state of capital markets, generally, and the amount the underwriters believed they reasonably could raise on our behalf. Factors considered in determining the size of this offering, prices and terms of the units, including the common stock and warrants underlying the units, include:

•        the history and prospects of companies whose principal business is the acquisition of other companies;

•        prior offerings of those companies;

•        our prospects for acquiring an operating business;

•        a review of debt to equity ratios in leveraged transactions;

•        our capital structure;

•        an assessment of our management and their experience in identifying operating companies;

•        general conditions of the securities markets at the time of this offering; and

•        other factors as were deemed relevant.

Although these factors were considered, the determination of our offering price is more arbitrary than the pricing of securities of an operating company in a particular industry since we have no historical operations or financial results.

There is currently no market for our securities and a market for our securities may not develop, which would adversely affect the liquidity and price of our securities.

There is currently no market for our securities. Stockholders therefore have no access to information about prior market history on which to base their investment decision. Following this offering, the price of our securities may vary significantly due to one or more potential business combinations and general market or economic conditions. Furthermore, an active trading market for our securities may never develop or, if developed, it may not be sustained. You may be unable to sell your securities unless a market can be established and sustained.

You will not be entitled to protections normally afforded to investors of many other blank check companies.

Since the net proceeds of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants are intended to be used to complete an initial business combination with a target business that has not been identified, we may be deemed to be a “blank check” company under the United States securities laws. However, because we will have net tangible assets in excess of $5,000,000 upon the successful completion of this offering and the sale of the private placement warrants and will file a Current Report on Form 8-K, including an audited balance sheet demonstrating this fact, we are exempt from rules promulgated by the SEC to protect investors in blank check companies, such as Rule 419.

45

Table of Contents

Accordingly, investors will not be afforded the benefits or protections of those rules. Among other things, this means our units will be immediately tradable and we may have a longer period of time to complete our initial business combination than do companies subject to Rule 419. Moreover, if this offering were subject to Rule 419, that rule would prohibit the release of any interest earned on funds held in the trust account to us unless and until the funds in the trust account were released to us in connection with our completion of an initial business combination. For a more detailed comparison of our offering to offerings that comply with Rule 419, please see the section of this prospectus entitled “Proposed Business — Comparison of This Offering to Those of Blank Check Companies Subject to Rule 419.”

As the number of special purpose acquisition companies evaluating targets increases, attractive targets may become scarcer and there may be more competition for attractive targets. This could increase the cost of our initial business combination and could even result in our inability to find a target or to consummate an initial business combination.

In recent years, the number of special purpose acquisition companies that have been formed has increased substantially. Many potential targets for special purpose acquisition companies have already entered into an initial business combination, and there are still many special purpose acquisition companies preparing for an initial public offering, as well as many such companies currently in registration. As a result, at times, fewer attractive targets may be available to consummate an initial business combination.

In addition, because there are more special purpose acquisition companies seeking to enter into an initial business combination with available targets, the competition for available targets with attractive fundamentals or business models may increase, which could cause targets companies to demand improved financial terms. Attractive deals could also become scarcer for other reasons, such as economic or industry sector downturns, geopolitical tensions, or increases in the cost of additional capital needed to close business combinations or operate targets post-business combination. This could increase the cost of, delay or otherwise complicate or frustrate our ability to find and consummate an initial business combination, and may result in our inability to consummate an initial business combination on terms favorable to our investors altogether.

If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and we do not conduct redemptions pursuant to the tender offer rules, and if you or a “group” of stockholders are deemed to hold in excess of 15% of our common stock, you will lose the ability to redeem all such shares in excess of 15% of our common stock.

If we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and we do not conduct redemptions in connection with our initial business combination pursuant to the tender offer rules, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that a public stockholder, together with any affiliate of such stockholder or any other person with whom such stockholder is acting in concert or as a “group” (as defined under Section 13 of the Exchange Act), will be restricted from seeking redemption rights with respect to more than an aggregate of 15% of the shares sold in this offering without our prior consent, which we refer to as the “Excess Shares.” However, we would not be restricting our stockholders’ ability to vote all of their shares (including Excess Shares) for or against our initial business combination. Your inability to redeem the Excess Shares will reduce your influence over our ability to complete our initial business combination and you could suffer a material loss on your investment in us if you sell Excess Shares in open market transactions. Additionally, you will not receive redemption distributions with respect to the Excess Shares if we complete our initial business combination. And as a result, you will continue to hold that number of shares exceeding 15% and, in order to dispose of such shares, would be required to sell your stock in open market transactions, potentially at a loss.

If third parties bring claims against us, the proceeds held in the trust account could be reduced and the per-share redemption amount received by stockholders may be less than $10.20 per share.

Our placing of funds in the trust account may not protect those funds from third-party claims against us. Although we will seek to have all vendors, service providers, prospective target businesses and other entities with which we do business execute agreements with us waiving any right, title, interest or claim of any kind in or to any monies held in the trust account for the benefit of our public stockholders, such parties may not execute such agreements, or even if they execute such agreements they may not be prevented from bringing claims against the trust account, including, but not limited to, fraudulent inducement, breach of fiduciary responsibility or other similar claims, as well as claims challenging the enforceability of the waiver, in each case in order to gain advantage with respect to a claim against our assets, including the funds held in the trust account. If any third party refuses to execute an agreement waiving such claims to the monies held in the trust account, our management will perform an analysis of the alternatives available to

46

Table of Contents

it and will only enter into an agreement with a third party that has not executed a waiver if management believes that such third party’s engagement would be significantly more beneficial to us than any alternative. We are not aware of any product or service providers who have not or will not provide such waiver other than the underwriters of this offering and our independent registered public accounting firm.

Examples of possible instances where we may engage a third party that refuses to execute a waiver include the engagement of a third party consultant whose particular expertise or skills are believed by management to be significantly superior to those of other consultants that would agree to execute a waiver or in cases where management is unable to find a service provider willing to execute a waiver. In addition, there is no guarantee that such entities will agree to waive any claims they may have in the future as a result of, or arising out of, any negotiations, contracts or agreements with us and will not seek recourse against the trust account for any reason. Upon redemption of our public shares, if we are unable to complete our initial business combination within the prescribed timeframe, or upon the exercise of a redemption right in connection with our initial business combination, we will be required to provide for payment of claims of creditors that were not waived that may be brought against us within the 10 years following redemption. Accordingly, the per-share redemption amount received by public stockholders could be less than the $10.20 per share initially held in the trust account, due to claims of such creditors. Pursuant to the letter agreement, the form of which is filed as Exhibit 10.1 to the registration statement of which this prospectus forms a part, our sponsor has agreed that it will be liable to us if and to the extent any claims by a third party for services rendered or products sold to us, or a prospective target business with which we have entered into a written letter of intent, confidentiality or similar agreement or business combination agreement, reduce the amount of funds in the trust account to below the lesser of (i) $10.20 per public share and (ii) the actual amount per public share held in the trust account as of the date of the liquidation of the trust account, if less than $10.20 per share due to reductions in the value of the trust assets, less taxes payable, provided that such liability will not apply to any claims by a third party or prospective target business who executed a waiver of any and all rights to the monies held in the trust account (whether or not such waiver is enforceable) nor will it apply to any claims under our indemnity of the underwriters of this offering against certain liabilities, including liabilities under the Securities Act. However, we have not asked our sponsor to reserve for such indemnification obligations, nor have we independently verified whether our sponsor has sufficient funds to satisfy its indemnity obligations and believe that our sponsor’s only assets are securities of our company. Therefore, we cannot assure you that our sponsor would be able to satisfy those obligations. None of our officers or directors will indemnify us for claims by third parties including, without limitation, claims by vendors and prospective target businesses.

The securities in which we invest the proceeds held in the trust account could bear a negative rate of interest, which could reduce the interest income available for payment of taxes of reduce the value of the assets held in trust such that the per share redemption amount received by shareholders may be less than $10.20 per share.

The net proceeds of this offering and certain proceeds from the sale of the private placement warrants, in the amount of $204,000,000, will be held in an interest-bearing trust account. The proceeds held in the trust account may only be invested in direct U.S. Treasury obligations having a maturity of 185 days or less, or in certain money market funds which invest only in direct U.S. Treasury obligations. While short-term U.S. Treasury obligations currently yield a positive rate of interest, they have briefly yielded negative interest rates in recent years. Central banks in Europe and Japan pursued interest rates below zero in recent years, and the Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve has not ruled out the possibility that it may in the future adopt similar policies in the United States. In the event of very low or negative yields, the amount of interest of income (which we are permitted to use to pay our taxes and up to $100,000 of dissolution expenses) would be reduced. In the event that we are unable to complete our initial business combination, our public shareholders are entitled to receive their pro-rata share of the proceeds held in the trust account, plus any interest income. If the balance of the trust account is reduced below $204,000,000 as a result of negative interest rates, the amount of funds in the trust account available for distribution to our public shareholders may be reduced below $10.20 per share.

Our directors may decide not to enforce the indemnification obligations of our sponsor, resulting in a reduction in the amount of funds in the trust account available for distribution to our public stockholders.

In the event that the proceeds in the trust account are reduced below the lesser of (i) $10.20 per public share and (ii) the actual amount per share held in the trust account as of the date of the liquidation of the trust account if less than $10.20 per share due to reductions in the value of the trust assets, in each case net of the interest which may

47

Table of Contents

be withdrawn to pay taxes, if any, and our sponsor asserts that it is unable to satisfy its obligations or that it has no indemnification obligations related to a particular claim, our independent directors would determine whether to take legal action against our sponsor to enforce its indemnification obligations.

While we currently expect that our independent directors would take legal action on our behalf against our sponsor to enforce its indemnification obligations to us, it is possible that our independent directors in exercising their business judgment and subject to their fiduciary duties may choose not to do so in any particular instance if, for example, the cost of such legal action is deemed by the independent directors to be too high relative to the amount recoverable or if the independent directors determine that a favorable outcome is not likely. If our independent directors choose not to enforce these indemnification obligations, the amount of funds in the trust account available for distribution to our public stockholders may be reduced below $10.20 per share.

We may not have sufficient funds to satisfy indemnification claims of our directors and executive officers.

We have agreed to indemnify our officers and directors to the fullest extent permitted by law. However, our officers and directors have agreed to waive any right, title, interest or claim of any kind in or to any monies in the trust account and not to seek recourse against the trust account for any reason whatsoever. Accordingly, any indemnification provided will be able to be satisfied by us only if (i) we have sufficient funds outside of the trust account or (ii) we consummate an initial business combination. Our obligation to indemnify our officers and directors may discourage stockholders from bringing a lawsuit against our officers or directors for breach of their fiduciary duty. These provisions also may have the effect of reducing the likelihood of derivative litigation against our officers and directors, even though such an action, if successful, might otherwise benefit us and our stockholders. Furthermore, a stockholder’s investment may be adversely affected to the extent we pay the costs of settlement and damage awards against our officers and directors pursuant to these indemnification provisions.

If, after we distribute the proceeds in the trust account to our public stockholders, we file a bankruptcy petition or an involuntary bankruptcy petition is filed against us that is not dismissed, a bankruptcy court may seek to recover such proceeds, and we and our board may be exposed to claims of punitive damages.

If, after we distribute the proceeds in the trust account to our public stockholders, we file a bankruptcy petition or an involuntary bankruptcy petition is filed against us that is not dismissed, any distributions received by stockholders could be viewed under applicable debtor/creditor and/or bankruptcy laws as either a “preferential transfer” or a “fraudulent conveyance.” As a result, a bankruptcy court could seek to recover all amounts received by our stockholders. In addition, our board of directors may be viewed as having breached its fiduciary duty to our creditors and/or having acted in bad faith, thereby exposing itself and us to claims of punitive damages, by paying public stockholders from the trust account prior to addressing the claims of creditors.

If, before distributing the proceeds in the trust account to our public stockholders, we file a bankruptcy petition or an involuntary bankruptcy petition is filed against us that is not dismissed, the claims of creditors in such proceeding may have priority over the claims of our stockholders and the per-share amount that would otherwise be received by our stockholders in connection with our liquidation may be reduced.

If, before distributing the proceeds in the trust account to our public stockholders, we file a bankruptcy petition or an involuntary bankruptcy petition is filed against us that is not dismissed, the proceeds held in the trust account could be subject to applicable bankruptcy law, and may be included in our bankruptcy estate and subject to the claims of third parties with priority over the claims of our stockholders. To the extent any bankruptcy claims deplete the trust account, the per-share amount that would otherwise be received by our stockholders in connection with our liquidation may be reduced.

Our stockholders may be held liable for claims by third parties against us to the extent of distributions received by them upon redemption of their shares.

Under the DGCL, stockholders may be held liable for claims by third parties against a corporation to the extent of distributions received by them in a dissolution. The pro rata portion of our trust account distributed to our public stockholders upon the redemption of our public shares in the event we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering may be considered a liquidating distribution under Delaware law. If a corporation complies with certain procedures set forth in Section 280 of the DGCL intended to ensure that it makes reasonable provision for all claims against it, including a 60-day notice period during which any third-party claims can be brought against the corporation, a 90-day period during which the corporation may reject any claims brought,

48

Table of Contents

and an additional 150-day waiting period before any liquidating distributions are made to stockholders, any liability of stockholders with respect to a liquidating distribution is limited to the lesser of such stockholder’s pro rata share of the claim or the amount distributed to the stockholder, and any liability of the stockholder would be barred after the third anniversary of the dissolution. However, it is our intention to redeem our public shares as soon as reasonably possible following the 18th month from the closing of this offering in the event we do not complete our initial business combination and, therefore, we do not intend to comply with the foregoing procedures.

Because we will not be complying with Section 280, Section 281(b) of the DGCL requires us to adopt a plan, based on facts known to us at such time that will provide for our payment of all existing and pending claims or claims that may be potentially brought against us within the 10 years following our dissolution. However, because we are a blank check company, rather than an operating company, and our operations will be limited to searching for prospective target businesses to acquire, the only likely claims to arise would be from our vendors (such as lawyers, investment bankers, etc.) or prospective target businesses. If our plan of distribution complies with Section 281(b) of the DGCL, any liability of stockholders with respect to a liquidating distribution is limited to the lesser of such stockholder’s pro rata share of the claim or the amount distributed to the stockholder, and any liability of the stockholder would likely be barred after the third anniversary of the dissolution. We cannot assure you that we will properly assess all claims that may be potentially brought against us. As such, our stockholders could potentially be liable for any claims to the extent of distributions received by them (but no more) and any liability of our stockholders may extend beyond the third anniversary of such date. Furthermore, if the pro rata portion of our trust account distributed to our public stockholders upon the redemption of our public shares in the event we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering is not considered a liquidating distribution under Delaware law and such redemption distribution is deemed to be unlawful (potentially due to the imposition of legal proceedings that a party may bring or due to other circumstances that are currently unknown), then pursuant to Section 174 of the DGCL, the statute of limitations for claims of creditors could then be six years after the unlawful redemption distribution, instead of three years, as in the case of a liquidating distribution.

We may not hold an annual meeting of stockholders until after the consummation of our initial business combination, which could delay the opportunity for our stockholders to elect directors.

In accordance with NYSE corporate governance requirements, we are not required to hold an annual meeting until no later than one year after our first fiscal year end following our listing on the NYSE. Under Section 211(b) of the DGCL, we are, however, required to hold an annual meeting of stockholders for the purposes of electing directors in accordance with our bylaws unless such election is made by written consent in lieu of such a meeting. We may not hold an annual meeting of stockholders to elect new directors prior to the consummation of our initial business combination, and thus we may not be in compliance with Section 211(b) of the DGCL, which requires an annual meeting. Therefore, if our stockholders want us to hold an annual meeting prior to the consummation of our initial business combination, they may attempt to force us to hold one by submitting an application to the Delaware Court of Chancery in accordance with Section 211(c) of the DGCL.

We are not registering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants under the Securities Act or any state securities laws at this time, and such registration may not be in place when an investor desires to exercise warrants, thus precluding such investor from being able to exercise its warrants except on a cashless basis. If the issuance of the shares upon exercise of warrants is not registered, qualified or exempt from registration or qualification, the holder of such warrant will not be entitled to exercise such warrant and such warrant may have no value and expire worthless.

We are not registering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants under the Securities Act or any state securities laws at this time. However, under the terms of the warrant agreement, we have agreed that as soon as practicable, but in no event later than 15 business days after the closing of our initial business combination, we will use our best efforts to file with the SEC a registration statement for the registration under the Securities Act of the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants and thereafter will use our best efforts to cause the same to become effective within 60 business days following the closing of our initial business combination and to maintain a current prospectus relating to the common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants, until the expiration of the warrants in accordance with the provisions of the warrant agreement. We cannot assure you that we will be able to do so if, for example, any facts or events arise which represent a fundamental change in the information set forth in the registration statement or prospectus, the financial statements contained or incorporated by reference therein are not current or correct or the SEC issues a stop order. If the shares issuable upon exercise of the warrants are not registered under the Securities Act, we will be required to permit holders to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis. However, no warrant will be exercisable for cash

49

Table of Contents

or on a cashless basis, and we will not be obligated to issue any shares to holders seeking to exercise their warrants, unless the issuance of the shares upon such exercise is registered or qualified under the securities laws of the state of the exercising holder, or an exemption from registration is available. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if a registration statement covering the common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants is not effective within a specified period following the consummation of our initial business combination, warrant holders may, until such time as there is an effective registration statement and during any period when we shall have failed to maintain an effective registration statement, exercise warrants on a cashless basis pursuant to the exemption provided by Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act, provided that such exemption is available. If that exemption, or another exemption, is not available, holders will not be able to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis. In no event will we be required to net cash settle any warrant, or issue securities or other compensation in exchange for the warrants in the event that we are unable to register or qualify the shares underlying the warrants under applicable state securities laws and there is no exemption available. If the issuance of the shares upon exercise of the warrants is not so registered or qualified or exempt from registration or qualification, the holder of such warrant will not be entitled to exercise such warrant and such warrant may have no value and expire worthless. In such event, holders who acquired their warrants as part of a purchase of units will have paid the full unit purchase price solely for the shares of common stock included in the units. If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may not exercise our redemption right if the issuance of shares of common stock upon exercise of the warrants is not exempt from registration or qualification under applicable state blue sky laws or we are unable to effect such registration or qualification. We will use our best efforts to register or qualify such shares of common stock under the blue sky laws of those states in which the warrants were offered by us in this offering. However, there may be instances in which holders of our public warrants may be unable to exercise such public warrants but holders of our private warrants may be able to exercise such private warrants.

If you exercise your public warrants on a “cashless basis,” you will receive fewer shares of common stock from such exercise than if you were to exercise such warrants for cash.

There are circumstances in which the exercise of the warrants may be required or permitted to be made on a cashless basis. First, if a registration statement covering the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the warrants is not effective by the 60th business day after the closing of our initial business combination, warrantholders may, until such time as there is an effective registration statement and during any other period when we will have failed to maintain an effective registration statement, exercise warrants on a cashless basis in accordance with Section 3(a)(9) of the Securities Act or another exemption; if the Section 3(a)(9) exemption, or another exemption, is not available, holders will not be able to exercise their warrants on a cashless basis. Second, if we call the public warrants for redemption, our management will have the option to require all holders that wish to exercise warrants to do so on a cashless basis. In the event of an exercise on a cashless basis, a holder would pay the warrant exercise price by surrendering the warrants for that number of shares of common stock equal to the quotient obtained by dividing (x) the product of the number of shares of common stock underlying the warrants, multiplied by the difference between the exercise price of the warrants and the “fair market value” (as defined in the next sentence) by (y) the fair market value. The “fair market value” is the average last reported sale price of the common stock for the 10 trading days ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which the notice of exercise is received by the warrant agent or on which the notice of redemption is sent to the holders of warrants, as applicable. As a result, you would receive fewer shares of common stock from such exercise than if you were to exercise such warrants for cash.

The grant of registration rights to our initial stockholders may make it more difficult to complete our initial business combination, and the future exercise of such rights may adversely affect the market price of our common stock.

Pursuant to an agreement to be entered into concurrently with the issuance and sale of the securities in this offering, our initial stockholders and their permitted transferees can demand that we register the private placement warrants, the shares of common stock issuable upon exercise of the founder shares and the private placement warrants held, or to be held, by them and, pursuant to agreements we may enter into with lenders of working capital loans, holders of warrants that may be issued upon conversion of working capital loans may demand that we register such warrants or the common stock issuable upon exercise of such warrants. We will bear the cost of registering these securities. The registration and availability of such a significant number of securities for trading in the public market may have an adverse effect on the market price of our common stock. In addition, the existence of the registration rights may make our initial business combination more costly or difficult to conclude. This is because the stockholders of the target business may increase the equity stake they seek in the combined entity or ask for more cash consideration to offset the negative impact on the market price of our common stock that is expected when the securities owned by our initial stockholders or holders of working capital loans or their respective permitted transferees are registered.

50

Table of Contents

Our sponsor paid an aggregate of approximately $25,000, or approximately $0.004 per founder share, and, accordingly, you will experience immediate and substantial dilution from the purchase of our common stock.

The difference between the public offering price per share (allocating all of the unit purchase price to the common stock and none to the warrant included in the unit) and the pro forma net tangible book value per share of our common stock after this offering constitutes the dilution to you and the other investors in this offering. Our sponsor acquired the founder shares at a nominal price, significantly contributing to this dilution. Upon the closing of this offering, and assuming, you and the other public stockholders will incur an immediate and substantial dilution of approximately 91.8% (or $9.18 per share, assuming no exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option), the difference between the pro forma net tangible book value per share of $0.82 and the initial offering price of $10.00 per unit. In addition, because of the anti-dilution rights of the founder shares, any equity or equity-linked securities issued or deemed issued in connection with our initial business combination would be disproportionately dilutive to our common stock.

We may amend the terms of the warrants in a manner that may be adverse to holders of public warrants with the approval by the holders of at least a majority of the then outstanding warrants. As a result, the exercise price of your warrants could be increased, the exercise period could be shortened and the number of shares of our common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant could be decreased, all without your approval.

Our warrants will be issued in registered form under a warrant agreement between Continental Stock Transfer & Trust Company, as warrant agent, and us. The warrant agreement provides that the terms of the warrants may be amended without the consent of any holder to cure any ambiguity or correct any defective provision, but requires the approval by the holders of at least a majority of the then outstanding warrants to make any change that adversely affects the interests of the registered holders of public warrants. Accordingly, we may amend the terms of the public warrants in a manner adverse to a holder if holders of at least a majority of the then outstanding warrants approve of such amendment. Although our ability to amend the terms of the public warrants with the consent of at least a majority of the then outstanding public warrants is unlimited, examples of such amendments could be amendments to, among other things, increase the exercise price of the warrants, convert the warrants into cash or stock, shorten the exercise period or decrease the number of shares of our common stock purchasable upon exercise of a warrant.

We may redeem your unexpired warrants prior to their exercise at a time that is disadvantageous to you, thereby making your warrants worthless.

We have the ability to redeem outstanding warrants at any time after they become exercisable and prior to their expiration, at a price of $0.01 per warrant, provided that the last reported sales price of our common stock equals or exceeds $18.00 per share (as adjusted for stock splits, stock dividends, reorganizations, recapitalizations and the like) for any 20 trading days within a 30 trading-day period ending on the third trading day prior to the date on which we give proper notice of such redemption and provided certain other conditions are met. If and when the warrants become redeemable by us, we may not exercise our redemption right if the issuance of shares of common stock upon exercise of the warrants is not exempt from registration or qualification under applicable state blue sky laws or we are unable to effect such registration or qualification. We will use our best efforts to register or qualify such shares of common stock under the blue sky laws of those states in which the warrants were offered by us in this offering. Redemption of the outstanding warrants could force you (i) to exercise your warrants and pay the exercise price therefor at a time when it may be disadvantageous for you to do so, (ii) to sell your warrants at the then-current market price when you might otherwise wish to hold your warrants or (iii) to accept the nominal redemption price which, at the time the outstanding warrants are called for redemption, is likely to be substantially less than the market value of your warrants.

Our warrants and founder shares may have an adverse effect on the market price of our common stock and make it more difficult to effectuate our initial business combination.

We will be issuing warrants to purchase 10,000,000 shares of our common stock (or up to 11,500,000 shares of common stock if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) as part of the units offered by this prospectus and, simultaneously with the closing of this offering, we will be issuing in a private placement warrants to purchase an aggregate of 9,900,000 (or up to 11,100,000 if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) shares of common stock at $11.50 per share.

Our initial stockholders currently own an aggregate of 5,750,000 founder shares. The founder shares are convertible into shares of common stock on a one-for-one basis, subject to adjustment as set forth herein. In addition, if our sponsor makes any working capital loans, up to $ 1,000,000 of such loans may be converted into warrants, at

51

Table of Contents

the price of $1.00 per warrant at the option of the lender. Such warrants would be identical to the public warrants, including as to exercise price, exercisability and exercise period. To the extent we issue shares of common stock to effectuate an initial business combination, the potential for the issuance of a substantial number of additional shares of common stock upon exercise of these warrants and conversion rights could make us a less attractive business combination vehicle to a target business. Any such issuance will increase the number of issued and outstanding shares of our common stock and reduce the value of the shares of common stock issued to complete the initial business combination. Therefore, our warrants and founder shares may make it more difficult to effectuate an initial business combination or increase the cost of acquiring the target business.

The private placement warrants are identical to the warrants sold as part of the units in this offering except that they (including the common stock issuable upon exercise of these warrants) may not, subject to certain limited exceptions, be transferred, assigned or sold by our sponsor until 30 days after the completion of our initial business combination.

Because each unit contains one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant and only a whole warrant may be exercised, the units may be worth less than units of other blank check companies.

Each unit contains one-half (1/2) of one redeemable warrant. No fractional warrants will be issued upon separation of the units and only whole warrants will trade. Accordingly, unless you purchase at least two units, you will not be able to receive or trade a whole warrant. This is different from other offerings similar to ours whose units include one share of common stock and one warrant to purchase one whole share. We have established the components of the units in this way in order to reduce the dilutive effect of the warrants upon completion of an initial business combination since the warrants will be exercisable in the aggregate for one half of the number of shares compared to units that each contain a whole warrant to purchase one whole share, thus making us, we believe, a more attractive merger partner for target businesses. Nevertheless, this unit structure may cause our units to be worth less than if they included a warrant to purchase one whole share.

A provision of our warrant agreement may make it more difficult for use to consummate an initial business combination.

Unlike most blank check companies, if we issue additional shares of common stock or equity-linked securities for capital raising purposes in connection with the closing of our initial business combination at a newly issued price of less than $9.20 per share of common stock, then the exercise price of the warrants will be adjusted to be equal to 115% of the newly issued price. This may make it more difficult for us to consummate an initial business combination with a target business.

Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and Delaware law may inhibit a takeover of us, which could limit the price investors might be willing to pay in the future for our common stock and could entrench management.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will contain provisions that may discourage unsolicited takeover proposals that stockholders may consider to be in their best interests. These provisions include the ability of the board of directors to designate the terms of and issue new series of preferred shares, which may make the removal of management more difficult and may discourage transactions that otherwise could involve payment of a premium over prevailing market prices for our securities.

We are also subject to anti-takeover provisions under Delaware law, which could delay or prevent a change of control. Together these provisions may make the removal of management more difficult and may discourage transactions that otherwise could involve payment of a premium over prevailing market prices for our securities.

We do not have a specified maximum redemption threshold. The absence of such a redemption threshold may make it possible for us to complete an initial business combination with which a substantial majority of our stockholders do not agree.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will not provide a specified maximum redemption threshold, except that in no event will we redeem our public shares in an amount that would cause our net tangible assets to be less than $5,000,001 (such that we are not subject to the SEC’s “penny stock” rules) or any greater net tangible asset or cash requirement which may be contained in the agreement relating to our initial business combination

52

Table of Contents

upon consummation of our initial business combination and after payment of underwriters’ fees and commissions. As a result, we may be able to complete our initial business combination even though a substantial majority of our public stockholders do not agree with the transaction and have redeemed their shares or, if we seek stockholder approval of our initial business combination and do not conduct redemptions in connection with our initial business combination pursuant to the tender offer rules, have entered into privately negotiated agreements to sell their shares to our sponsor, officers, directors, advisors or their affiliates. In the event the aggregate cash consideration we would be required to pay for all shares of common stock that are validly submitted for redemption plus any amount required to satisfy cash conditions pursuant to the terms of the proposed initial business combination exceed the aggregate amount of cash available to us, we will not complete the initial business combination or redeem any shares, all shares of common stock submitted for redemption will be returned to the holders thereof, and we instead may search for an alternate business combination.

In order to effectuate an initial business combination, blank check companies have, in the recent past, amended various provisions of their charters and other governing instruments, including their warrant agreements. We cannot assure you that we will not seek to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or governing instruments in a manner that will make it easier for us to complete our initial business combination that our stockholders may not support.

In order to effectuate an initial business combination, blank check companies have, in the recent past, amended various provisions of their charters and modified governing instruments, including their warrant agreements. For example, blank check companies have amended the definition of business combination, increased redemption thresholds and extended the time to consummate an initial business combination and, with respect to their warrants, amended their warrant agreements to require the warrants to be exchanged for cash and/or other securities. Amending our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will require the approval of holders of 65% of our common stock, and amending our warrant agreement will require a vote of holders of at least a majority of the outstanding warrants. In addition, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation requires us to provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem their public shares for cash if we propose an amendment to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (A) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (B) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity. To the extent any such amendments would be deemed to fundamentally change the nature of any securities offered through this registration statement, we would register, or seek an exemption from registration for, the affected securities. We cannot assure you that we will not seek to amend our charter or governing instruments or extend the time to consummate an initial business combination in order to effectuate our initial business combination.

The provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation that relate to our pre-business combination activity (and corresponding provisions of the agreement governing the release of funds from our trust account), including an amendment to permit us to withdraw funds from the trust account such that the per share amount investors will receive upon any redemption or liquidation is substantially reduced or eliminated, may be amended with the approval of holders of 65% of our common stock, which is a lower amendment threshold than that of some other blank check companies. It may be easier for us, therefore, to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and the trust agreement to facilitate the completion of an initial business combination that some of our stockholders may not support.

Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that any of its provisions related to pre-initial business combination activity (including the requirement to deposit proceeds of this offering and the private placement of warrants into the trust account and not release such amounts except in specified circumstances, and to provide redemption rights to public stockholders as described herein and including to permit us to withdraw funds from the trust account such that the per share amount investors will receive upon any redemption or liquidation is substantially reduced or eliminated) may be amended if approved by holders of 65% of our common stock entitled to vote thereon, and corresponding provisions of the trust agreement governing the release of funds from our trust account may be amended if approved by holders of 65% of our common stock entitled to vote thereon. Subject to applicable provisions of the DGCL or applicable stock exchanges rules, in all other instances, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation may be amended by holders of a majority of our outstanding common stock entitled to vote thereon. We may not issue additional securities that can vote on amendments to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation. Our initial stockholders will own up to 20% of our common stock upon the closing of this offering

53

Table of Contents

(assuming they do not purchase any units in this offering), will participate in any vote to amend our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and/or trust agreement and will have the discretion to vote in any manner they choose. As a result, we may be able to amend the provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation which govern our pre-initial business combination behavior more easily than some other blank check companies, and this may increase our ability to complete an initial business combination with which you do not agree. Our stockholders may pursue remedies against us for any breach of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation.

Our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed, pursuant to a written agreement with us, that they will not propose any amendment to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation (i) to modify the substance or timing of the ability of holders of our public shares to seek redemption in connection with our initial business combination or our obligation to redeem 100% of our public shares if we do not complete our initial business combination within 18 months from the closing of this offering or (ii) with respect to any other provision relating to stockholders’ rights or pre-initial business combination activity, unless we provide our public stockholders with the opportunity to redeem their shares of common stock upon approval of any such amendment at a per-share price, payable in cash, equal to the aggregate amount then on deposit in the trust account, divided by the number of then outstanding public shares. These agreements are contained in a letter agreement that we have entered into with our sponsor, officers and directors. Our stockholders are not parties to, or third-party beneficiaries of, these agreements and, as a result, will not have the ability to pursue remedies against our sponsor, officers or directors for any breach of these agreements. As a result, in the event of a breach, our stockholders would need to pursue a stockholder derivative action, subject to applicable law.

Risks Relating to our Management

Past performance by members of our management team may not be indicative of future performance of an investment in the Company.

Past performance by members of our management team is not a guarantee either (i) of success with respect to any business combination we may consummate or (ii) that we will be able to locate a suitable candidate for our initial business combination. You should not rely on the historical record of members of our management team’s performance as indicative of our future performance of an investment in the company or the returns the company will, or is likely to, generate going forward.

We are dependent upon our executive officers and directors and their departure could adversely affect our ability to operate.

Our operations are dependent upon a relatively small group of individuals and, in particular, our executive officers and directors. We believe that our success depends on the continued service of our executive officers and directors, at least until we have completed our initial business combination. We do not have an employment agreement with, or key-man insurance on the life of, any of our directors or executive officers. The unexpected loss of the services of one or more of our directors or executive officers could have a detrimental effect on us.

Our officers and directors will allocate their time to other businesses thereby causing conflicts of interest in their determination as to how much time to devote to our affairs. This conflict of interest could have a negative impact on our ability to complete our initial business combination.

Our officers and directors are not required to, and will not, commit their full time to our affairs, which may result in a conflict of interest in allocating their time between our operations and our search for an initial business combination and their other businesses. We do not intend to have any full-time employees prior to the completion of our initial business combination. Each of our officers is engaged in other business endeavors for which he may be entitled to substantial compensation and our officers are not obligated to contribute any specific number of hours per week to our affairs. Our independent directors may also serve as officers or board members for other entities. If our officers’ and directors’ other business affairs require them to devote substantial amounts of time to such affairs in excess of their current commitment levels, it could limit their ability to devote time to our affairs which may have a negative impact on our ability to complete our initial business combination. For a complete discussion of our officers’ and directors’ other business affairs, please see the section of this prospectus entitled “Management — Officers, Directors and Director Nominees.”

54

Table of Contents

Certain of our officers, directors and director nominees are now, and all of them may in the future become, affiliated with entities engaged in business activities similar to those intended to be conducted by us and, accordingly, may have conflicts of interest in allocating their time and determining to which entity a particular business opportunity should be presented.

Following the completion of this offering and until we consummate our initial business combination, we intend to engage in the business of identifying and combining with one or more businesses. Our sponsor, officers, directors and director nominees are, and may in the future become, affiliated with entities (such as operating companies or investment vehicles) that are engaged in a similar business, although they may not participate in the formation of, or become an officer or director of, any other special purpose acquisition companies with a class of securities registered under the Exchange Act until we have entered into a definitive agreement regarding our initial business combination or we have failed to complete our initial business combination within 18 months after the closing of this offering.

Our officers and directors also may become aware of business opportunities which may be appropriate for presentation to us and the other entities to which they owe certain fiduciary or contractual duties.

Accordingly, they may have conflicts of interest in determining to which entity a particular business opportunity should be presented. These conflicts may not be resolved in our favor and a potential target business may be presented to another entity prior to its presentation to us. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation will provide that we renounce our interest in any corporate opportunity offered to any director or officer unless such opportunity is expressly offered to such person solely in his or her capacity as a director or officer of our company and such opportunity is one we are legally and contractually permitted to undertake and would otherwise be reasonable for us to pursue, and to the extent the director or officer is permitted to refer that opportunity to us without violating another legal obligation.

For a complete discussion of our officers’ and directors’ business affiliations and the potential conflicts of interest that you should be aware of, please see the sections of this prospectus entitled “Management — Officers, Directors and Director Nominees” “Management — Conflicts of Interest” and “Certain Relationships and Related Party Transactions.”

Our officers, directors, security holders and their respective affiliates may have competitive pecuniary interests that conflict with our interests.

We have not adopted a policy that expressly prohibits our directors, officers, security holders or affiliates from having a direct or indirect pecuniary or financial interest in any investment to be acquired or disposed of by us or in any transaction to which we are a party or have an interest. In fact, we may enter into an initial business combination with a target business that is affiliated with our sponsor, our directors or officers, although we do not intend to do so.

We do not have a policy that expressly prohibits any such persons from engaging for their own account in business activities of the types conducted by us. Accordingly, such persons or entities may have a conflict between their interests and ours.

We may seek business combination opportunities in industries or sectors which may or may not be outside of our management team’s area of expertise.

Although we intend to focus on the financial services and FinTech and technology industries, we will consider an initial business combination outside of our management team’s area of expertise if an initial business combination candidate is presented to us and we determine that such candidate offers an attractive business combination opportunity for our company or we are unable to identify a suitable candidate in this sector after having expanded a reasonable amount of time and effort in an attempt to do so. Although our management team will endeavor to evaluate the risks inherent in any particular business combination candidate, we cannot assure you that we will adequately ascertain or assess all of the significant risk factors. We also cannot assure you that an investment in our units will not ultimately prove to be less favorable to investors in this offering than a direct investment, if an opportunity were available, in an initial business combination candidate. In the event we elect to pursue a business combination outside of the areas of our management team’s expertise, our management team’s expertise may not be directly applicable to its evaluation or operation, and the information contained in this prospectus regarding the areas of our management team’s expertise would not be relevant to an understanding of the business that we elect to acquire. As a result, our management team may not be able to adequately ascertain or assess all of the significant risk factors. Accordingly, any stockholders who choose to remain stockholders following our initial business combination could suffer a reduction in the value of their shares. Such stockholders are unlikely to have a remedy for such reduction in value.

55

Table of Contents

Our ability to successfully effect our initial business combination and to be successful thereafter will be totally dependent upon the efforts of our key personnel, some of whom may join us following our initial business combination. The loss of key personnel could negatively impact the operations and profitability of our post-combination business.

Our ability to successfully effect our initial business combination is dependent upon the efforts of our key personnel. The role of our key personnel in the target business, however, cannot presently be ascertained. Although some of our key personnel may remain with the target business in senior management or advisory positions following our initial business combination, it is likely that some or all of the management of the target business will remain in place. While we intend to closely scrutinize any individuals we employ after our initial business combination, we cannot assure you that our assessment of these individuals will prove to be correct. These individuals may be unfamiliar with the requirements of operating a company regulated by the SEC, which could cause us to have to expend time and resources helping them become familiar with such requirements. In addition, the officers and directors of an initial business combination candidate may resign upon completion of our initial business combination. The departure of an initial business combination target’s key personnel could negatively impact the operations and profitability of our post-combination business. The role of an initial business combination candidate’s key personnel upon the completion of our initial business combination cannot be ascertained at this time. Although we contemplate that certain members of an initial business combination candidate’s management team will remain associated with the initial business combination candidate following our initial business combination, it is possible that members of the management of an initial business combination candidate will not wish to remain in place. The loss of key personnel could negatively impact the operations and profitability of our post-combination business.

Our key personnel may negotiate employment or consulting agreements with a target business in connection with a particular business combination. These agreements may provide for them to receive compensation following our initial business combination and as a result, may cause them to have conflicts of interest in determining whether a particular business combination is the most advantageous.

Our key personnel may be able to remain with the company after the completion of our initial business combination only if they are able to negotiate employment or consulting agreements in connection with the initial business combination. Such negotiations would take place simultaneously with the negotiation of the initial business combination and could provide for such individuals to receive compensation in the form of cash payments and/or our securities for services they would render to us after the completion of the initial business combination. The personal and financial interests of such individuals may influence their motivation in identifying and selecting a target business. However, we believe the ability of such individuals to remain with us after the completion of our initial business combination will not be the determining factor in our decision as to whether or not we will proceed with any potential business combination. There is no certainty, however, that any of our key personnel will remain with us after the completion of our initial business combination. We cannot assure you that any of our key personnel will remain in senior management or advisory positions with us. The determination as to whether any of our key personnel will remain with us will be made at the time of our initial business combination.

We may engage in an initial business combination with one or more target businesses that have relationships with entities that may be affiliated with our sponsor, officers, directors or existing holders which may raise potential conflicts of interest.

In light of the involvement of our sponsor, officers and directors with other entities, we may decide to acquire one or more businesses affiliated with our sponsor, officers or directors. Our directors also serve as officers and board members for other entities, including, without limitation, those described under the section of this prospectus entitled “Management — Conflicts of Interest.” Such entities may compete with us for business combination opportunities. Our sponsor, officers and directors are not currently aware of any specific opportunities for us to complete our initial business combination with any entities with which they are affiliated, and there have been no preliminary discussions concerning an initial business combination with any such entity or entities. Although we will not be specifically focusing on, or targeting, any transaction with any affiliated entities, we would pursue such a transaction if we determined that such affiliated entity met our criteria for an initial business combination as set forth in the section of this prospectus entitled “Proposed Business — Selection of a Target Business and Structuring of our Initial Business Combination” and such transaction was approved by a majority of our disinterested directors. Despite our agreement to obtain an opinion from an independent investment banking firm that is a member of FINRA or from an independent accounting firm, regarding the fairness to our stockholders from a financial point of view of an initial business

56

Table of Contents

combination with one or more domestic or international businesses affiliated with our officers, directors or existing holders, potential conflicts of interest still may exist and, as a result, the terms of the initial business combination may not be as advantageous to our public stockholders as they would be absent any conflicts of interest.

Since our sponsor, officers and directors will lose their entire investment in us if our initial business combination is not completed, a conflict of interest may arise in determining whether a particular business combination target is appropriate for our initial business combination.

On April 14, 2021, our sponsor purchased an aggregate of 5,750,000 founder shares for an aggregate purchase price of $25,000, or approximately $0.004 per share. The number of founder shares issued was determined based on the expectation that such founder shares would represent 20% of the outstanding shares after this offering. The founder shares and the private placement warrants will be worthless if we do not complete an initial business combination. Up to an aggregate of 750,000 founder shares are subject to forfeiture by our sponsor depending on the extent to which the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised. In addition, our sponsor has committed to purchase an aggregate of 9,900,000 private placement warrants, each exercisable for one share of our common stock at $11.50 per share, for a purchase price of $9,900,000, or $1.00 per warrant, that will also be worthless if we do not complete an initial business combination. Our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed to vote any founder shares owned by it in favor of any proposed initial business combination, and our sponsor, officers and directors have agreed not to redeem any founder shares in connection with a stockholder vote to approve a proposed initial business combination. In addition, we may obtain loans from our sponsor, affiliates of our sponsor or an officer or director. The personal and financial interests of our officers and directors may influence their motivation in identifying and selecting a target business combination, completing an initial business combination and influencing the operation of the business following the initial business combination.

The value of the founder shares following completion of our initial business combination is likely to be substantially higher than the price paid for them, even if the trading price of our shares at such time is substantially less than $10.00 per share.

Our initial shareholders paid $25,000 to purchase the founder shares which will represent 20% of the outstanding shares of our common stock following the completion of the offering and will invest $9,900,000 to purchase 9,900,000 private placement warrants for a total investment of $9,925,000 assuming no exercise of the over–allotment option. Assuming a trading price of $10.00 per share upon consummation of our initial business combination, the founder shares, would have an aggregate implied value of $50 million. Even if the trading price of our shares was as low as $1.98 per share, the value of the founder shares would be equal to our initial shareholders’ initial investment in us. As a result, our initial shareholders are likely to be able to recoup their investment in us and make a substantial profit on that investment, even if our public shares have lost significant value. Accordingly, our management team, which owns interests in our sponsor, may have an economic incentive that differs from that of the public shareholders to pursue and consummate an initial business combination rather than to liquidate and to return all of the cash in the trust to the public shareholders, even if that business combination were with a riskier or less-established target business. For the foregoing reasons, you should consider our management team’s financial incentive to complete an initial business combination when evaluating whether to redeem your shares prior to or in connection with the initial business combination.

Our initial stockholders may exert a substantial influence on actions requiring a stockholder vote, potentially in a manner that you do not support.

Upon the closing of this offering, our initial stockholders will own shares representing 20% of our issued and outstanding shares of common stock (assuming they do not purchase any units in this offering). Accordingly, they may exert a substantial influence on actions requiring a stockholder vote, potentially in a manner that you do not support, including amendments to our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and approval of major corporate transactions. If our initial stockholders purchase any units in this offering or if our initial stockholders purchase any additional shares of common stock in the aftermarket or in privately negotiated transactions, this would increase their control. Factors that would be considered in making such additional purchases would include consideration of the current trading price of our common stock. In addition, our board of directors, whose members were elected by certain of our initial stockholders, will be elected in each year. We may not hold an annual meeting of stockholders to elect new directors prior to the completion of our initial business combination, in which case all of the current directors will continue in office until at least the completion of the initial business combination. If there is an annual meeting, our initial stockholders, because of their ownership position, will have considerable influence regarding the outcome. Accordingly, our initial stockholders will continue to exert control at least until the completion of our initial business combination.

57

Table of Contents

General Risks

We are a newly formed company with no operating history and no revenues, and you have no basis on which to evaluate our ability to achieve our business objective.

We are a newly formed company with no operating results, and we will not commence operations until obtaining funding through this offering. Because we lack an operating history, you have no basis upon which to evaluate our ability to achieve our business objective of completing our initial business combination with one or more target businesses. We have no plans, arrangements or understandings with any prospective target business concerning an initial business combination and may be unable to complete our initial business combination. If we fail to complete our initial business combination, we will never generate any operating revenues.

Our independent registered public accounting firm’s report contains an explanatory paragraph that expresses substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a “going concern.”

At April 14, 2021, we had $25,000 in cash and a working capital deficiency of $25,000. Further, we have incurred and expect to continue to incur significant costs in pursuit of our financing and acquisition plans. Management’s plans to address this need for capital through this offering are discussed in the section of this prospectus titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.” We cannot assure you that our plans to raise capital or to consummate an initial business combination will be successful. These factors, among others, raise substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. The financial statements contained elsewhere in this prospectus do not include any adjustments that might result from our inability to consummate this offering or our inability to continue as a going concern.

Changes in laws or regulations, or a failure to comply with any laws and regulations, may adversely affect our business, including our ability to negotiate and complete our initial business combination and results of operations.

We are subject to laws and regulations enacted by national, regional and local governments. In particular, we will be required to comply with certain SEC and other legal requirements. Compliance with, and monitoring of, applicable laws and regulations may be difficult, time consuming and costly.

Those laws and regulations and their interpretation and application may also change from time to time and those changes could have a material adverse effect on our business, investments and results of operations. In addition, a failure to comply with applicable laws or regulations, as interpreted and applied, could have a material adverse effect on our business, including our ability to negotiate and complete our initial business combination and results of operations.

We are an emerging growth company and a smaller reporting company within the meaning of the Securities Act, and if we take advantage of certain exemptions from disclosure requirements available to emerging growth companies and a smaller reporting companies, this could make our securities less attractive to investors and may make it more difficult to compare our performance with other public companies.

We are an “emerging growth company” within the meaning of the Securities Act, as modified by the JOBS Act, and we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other public companies that are not emerging growth companies including, but not limited to, not being required to comply with the auditor attestation requirements of Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, reduced disclosure obligations regarding executive compensation in our periodic reports and proxy statements, and exemptions from the requirements of holding a non-binding advisory vote on executive compensation and stockholder approval of any golden parachute payments not previously approved. As a result, our stockholders may not have access to certain information they may deem important. We could be an emerging growth company for up to five years, although circumstances could cause us to lose that status earlier, including if the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million as of any June 30 before that time, in which case we would no longer be an emerging growth company as of the following December 31. We cannot predict whether investors will find our securities less attractive because we will rely on these exemptions. If some investors find our securities less attractive as a result of our reliance on these exemptions, the trading prices of our securities may be lower than they otherwise would be, there may be a less active trading market for our securities and the trading prices of our securities may be more volatile.

58

Table of Contents

Further, Section 102(b)(1) of the JOBS Act exempts emerging growth companies from being required to comply with new or revised financial accounting standards until private companies (that is, those that have not had a Securities Act registration statement declared effective or do not have a class of securities registered under the Exchange Act) are required to comply with the new or revised financial accounting standards. The JOBS Act provides that a company can elect to opt out of the extended transition period and comply with the requirements that apply to non-emerging growth companies but any such an election to opt out is irrevocable. We have elected not to opt out of such extended transition period, which means that when a standard is issued or revised and it has different application dates for public or private companies, we, as an emerging growth company, can adopt the new or revised standard at the time private companies adopt the new or revised standard. This may make comparison of our financial statements with another public company which is neither an emerging growth company nor an emerging growth company which has opted out of using the extended transition period difficult or impossible because of the potential differences in accounting standards used.

Additionally, we are a “smaller reporting company” as defined in Rule 10(f)(1) of Regulation S-K. Smaller reporting companies may take advantage of certain reduced disclosure obligations, including, among other things, providing only two years of audited financial statements. We will remain a smaller reporting company until the last day of the fiscal year in which (1) the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates equals or exceeds $250 million as of the end of the prior June 30th, or (2) our annual revenues equal or exceed $100 million during such completed fiscal year and the market value of our common stock held by non-affiliates equals or exceeds $700 million as of the prior June 30th. To the extent we take advantage of such reduced disclosure obligations, it may also make comparison of our financial statements with other public companies difficult or impossible.

Compliance obligations under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may make it more difficult for us to effectuate our initial business combination, require substantial financial and management resources, and increase the time and costs of completing an initial business combination.

Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires that we evaluate and report on our system of internal controls beginning with our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ending December 31, 2021. Only in the event we are deemed to be a large accelerated filer or an accelerated filer, and no longer qualify as an emerging growth company, will we be required to comply with the independent registered public accounting firm attestation requirement on our internal control over financial reporting. Further, for as long as we remain an emerging growth company, we will not be required to comply with the independent registered public accounting firm attestation requirement on our internal control over financial reporting. The fact that we are a blank check company makes compliance with the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act particularly burdensome on us as compared to other public companies because a target company with which we seek to complete our initial business combination may not be in compliance with the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act regarding adequacy of its internal controls. The development of the internal control of any such entity to achieve compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act may increase the time and costs necessary to complete any such business combination.

Cyber incidents or attacks directed at us could result in information theft, data corruption, operational disruption and/or financial loss.

We depend on digital technologies, including information systems, infrastructure and cloud applications and services, including those of third parties with which we may deal. Sophisticated and deliberate attacks on, or security breaches in, our systems or infrastructure, or the systems or infrastructure of third parties or the cloud, could lead to corruption or misappropriation of our assets, proprietary information and sensitive or confidential data. As an early stage company without significant investments in data security protection, we may not be sufficiently protected against such occurrences. We may not have sufficient resources to adequately protect against, or to investigate and remediate any vulnerability to, cyber incidents. It is possible that any of these occurrences, or a combination of them, could have adverse consequences on our business and lead to financial loss.

59

Table of Contents

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this prospectus may constitute “forward-looking statements” for purposes of the federal securities laws. Our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding our or our management team’s expectations, hopes, beliefs, intentions or strategies regarding the future. In addition, any statements that refer to projections, forecasts or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking statements. The words “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “would” and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking. Forward-looking statements in this prospectus may include, for example, statements about:

•        our ability to select an appropriate target business or businesses;

•        our ability to complete our initial business combination;

•        our expectations around the performance of the prospective target business or businesses;

•        our success in retaining or recruiting, or changes required in, our officers, key employees or directors following our initial business combination;

•        our officers and directors allocating their time to other businesses and potentially having conflicts of interest with our business or in approving our initial business combination, as a result of which they would then receive expense reimbursements;

•        our potential ability to obtain additional financing to complete our initial business combination;

•        our pool of prospective target businesses;

•        the ability of our officers and directors to generate a number of potential acquisition opportunities;

•        our public securities’ potential liquidity and trading;

•        the lack of a market for our securities;

•        the use of proceeds not held in the trust account or available to us from interest income on the trust account balance;

•        the trust account not being subject to claims of third parties; or

•        our financial performance following this offering.

The forward-looking statements contained in this prospectus are based on our current expectations and beliefs concerning future developments and their potential effects on us. There can be no assurance that future developments affecting us will be those that we have anticipated. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond our control) or other assumptions that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors described under the section of this prospectus entitled “Risk Factors.” Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should any of our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary in material respects from those projected in these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

60

Table of Contents

USE OF PROCEEDS

We are offering 20,000,000 units at an offering price of $10.00 per unit. We estimate that the net proceeds of this offering, together with the funds we will receive from the sale of the private placement warrants upon the closing of this offering, will be used as set forth in the following table.

 

Without
Over-Allotment
Option

 

Over-Allotment
Option Fully
Exercised

Gross proceeds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gross proceeds from units offered to public(1)

 

$

200,000,000

 

 

$

230,000,000

 

Gross proceeds from private placement warrants offered in the private placement

 

$

9,900,000

 

 

$

11,100,000

 

Total gross proceeds

 

$

209,900,000

 

 

$

241,100,000

 

Estimated offering expenses(2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Underwriting commissions (2% of gross proceeds from units offered to public, excluding deferred portion)(3)

 

$

4,000,000

 

 

$

4,600,000

 

Legal fees and expenses

 

 

250,000

 

 

 

250,000

 

Accounting fees and expenses

 

 

40,000

 

 

 

40,000

 

SEC/FINRA Expenses

 

 

60,093

 

 

 

60,093

 

NYSE listing and filing fees

 

 

85,000

 

 

 

85,000

 

Printing and engraving expenses

 

 

40,000

 

 

 

40,000

 

Miscellaneous

 

 

24,907

 

 

 

24,907

 

Total offering expenses (excluding underwriting commissions)

 

$

500,000

 

 

$

500,000

(2)

Director and Officer liability insurance premiums

 

 

400,000

 

 

 

400,000

 

Proceeds after expenses

 

$

205,000,000

 

 

 

235,600,000

 

Held in trust account

 

$

204,000,000

 

 

$

234,600,000

 

% of public offering size

 

 

102

%

 

 

102

%

Not held in trust account(4)

 

$

1,000,000

 

 

$

1,000,000

 

The following table shows the estimated use of the approximately $1,000,000 of net proceeds not held in the trust account.(4)(5)

 

Amount

 

% of Total

Legal, accounting, due diligence, travel, and other expenses in connection with any business combination

 

$

360,000

 

36.0

%

Legal and accounting fees related to regulatory reporting obligations

 

 

100,000

 

10.0

%

Payment for office space, utilities and secretarial and administrative support ($10,000 per month for up to 18 months)

 

 

180,000

 

18.0

%

Working capital to cover miscellaneous expenses

 

 

360,000

 

36.0

%

Total

 

$

1,000,000

 

100.0

%

____________

(1)      Includes gross proceeds from this offering of $200,000,000 (or $230,000,000 if the underwriters’ overallotment option is exercised in full).

(2)      A portion of the offering expenses will be paid from the proceeds of $600,000 in loans from our sponsor pursuant to a promissory note as described in this prospectus. Any borrowed amounts will be repaid upon completion of this offering out of the offering proceeds that has been allocated for the payment of offering expenses (other than underwriting commissions). In the event that offering expenses are more than as set forth in this table, they will be repaid using a portion of the $1,000,000 of offering proceeds not held in the trust account and set aside for post-closing working capital expenses. In the event that offering expenses are less than set forth in this table, any such amounts will be used for post-closing working capital expenses.

(3)      The underwriters have agreed to defer underwriting commissions equal to 3.5% of the gross proceeds of this offering. Upon completion of our initial business combination, $7,000,000 which constitutes the underwriters’ deferred commissions (or up to $8,050,000 if the underwriters’ over-allotment option is exercised in full) will be paid to the underwriters from the funds held in the trust account, and the remaining funds, less amounts released to the trustee to pay redeeming stockholders, will be released to us and can be used to pay all or a portion of the purchase price of the business or businesses with which our initial business combination occurs or for general corporate purposes, including payment of principal or interest on

61

Table of Contents

indebtedness incurred in connection with our initial business combination, to fund the purchases of other companies or for working capital. The underwriters will not be entitled to any interest accrued on the deferred underwriting discounts and commissions.

(4)      A portion of the offering expenses will be paid from the proceeds of $600,000 in loans from our sponsor pursuant to a promissory note as described in this prospectus. Any borrowed amounts will be repaid upon completion of this offering out of the offering proceeds that has been allocated for the payment of offering expenses (other than underwriting commissions). In the event that offering expenses are more than as set forth in this table, they will be repaid using a portion of the $1,000,000 of offering proceeds not held in the trust account and set aside for post-closing working capital expenses. In the event that offering expenses are less than set forth in this table, any such amounts will be used for post-closing working capital expenses.

(5)      These expenses are estimates only and do not include interest which may be available to us from the trust account. Our actual expenditures for some or all of these items may differ from the estimates set forth herein. For example, we may incur greater legal and accounting expenses than our current estimates in connection with negotiating and structuring our initial business combination based upon the level of complexity of such business combination. In the event we identify an initial business combination target in a specific industry subject to specific regulations, we may incur additional expenses associated with legal due diligence and the engagement of special legal counsel. In addition, our staffing needs may vary and as a result, we may engage a number of consultants to assist with legal and financial due diligence. We do not anticipate any change in our intended use of proceeds, other than fluctuations among the current categories of allocated expenses, which fluctuations, to the extent they exceed current estimates for any specific category of expenses, would not be available for our expenses.

We may increase or decrease the total number of units sold to the public in this offering by up to 20%. If we decide to proceed with an offering that r