The IPO Buzz: Lionheart & Melar Acquisition I & Flag Ship Acquisition Raise $410 Million Combined

SPAC IPO bankers raised a total of $410 million – as expected – with the pricing of these three deals on Monday night, June 17, 2024 – to start trading today – Tuesday, June 18 – on the NASDAQ:   *Lionheart Holdings (CUBWU) raised $200.0 million – 20.0 million units at $10.00 each – with Cantor as the sole book-runner. Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share and one-half of one redeemable warrant. *Melar Acquisition Corp. I (MACIU) raised $150.0 million – 15,0 million units at $10.00 each – with Cohen & Company Capital Markets and Seaport Global Securities as the joint book-runners. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one-half of a warrant. *Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. (FSHPU) raised $60.0 million – 6.0 million units at $10.00 each – with Lucid Capital Markets as the sole book-runner. Each unit consists of one ordinary share and one right to receive one-tenth (1/10) of an ordinary share upon the consummation of an initial business combination. Worth noting: Lionheart Holdings changed its proposed NASDAQ symbol to “CUBWU” from the original “CUBBU” – according to an S-1/A filing on June 7, 2024. All three SPAC IPOs were priced in sync with the terms in their prospectuses. They share another thing in common: Each of these SPACs is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, their SEC filings show. At pricing, Lionheart Holdings became the fourth SPAC IPO priced so far in June 2024 and the 13^th SPAC IPO priced for the year to date, while Melar Acquisition Corp. I became the fifth SPAC IPO priced in June 2024 and the 14^th SPAC IPO priced so far in 2024. Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. – at pricing – became the sixth SPAC IPO priced in June 2024 so far and the 15^th SPAC IPO priced in 2024 for the year to date. Lionheart Holdings of Miami Ophir Sternberg, the founder and CEO of Lionheart Capital LLC of Miami, is the founding director of Lionheart Holdings. He is also the CEO, president and chairman of the board of Lionheart Holdings. Sternberg has over 30 years of experience acquiring, developing, repositioning and investing in all segments of the real estate industry, including office, industrial, retail, hospitality, ultra-luxury residential condominiums and land acquisitions, the prospectus says. Lionheart Holdings says it may pursue an initial business combination in any business or industry. Melar Acquisition I of New York Melar Acquisition Corp. I, based in New York, intends “to search for target companies in retail finance, specialty finance or financial technology, which we view as the emerging finance sector,” the SPAC says in its IPO prospectus. The CEO and chairman of Melar Acquisition I is Gautam Ivatury, the co-founder and managing partner of ALMA Sustainable Finance, a debt investment firm. Melar Acquisition I is also a family affair, its SEC filings show: *Edward Lifshitz, a former partner at EisnerAmper, is the chief financial officer (CFO). *His son, Eric Lifshitz, the founder of Melar Capital Group, a real estate advisory and investment firm, is the chief operating officer (COO). Flag Ship Acquisition & China Flag Ship Acquisition Corp., based in New York, says its management team’s  experience in Asia – decades of involvement in M&A and operating companies there – should be beneficial in its search for an acquisition or business combination target, the prospectus says. This SPAC will focus on target companies with a connection to the Asian market. “We will primarily seek to acquire one or more growth businesses with a total enterprise value of between $200 million and $400 million,” Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. says in the prospectus. Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. says its “executive officers’ and directors’ ties to China mean that we are more likely to acquire a company based in China in an initial business combination,” the prospectus says. (Please see the “Risk Factors” section of the prospectus.) “We will not consider or undertake an initial business combination with any target company the financial statements of which are audited by an accounting firm that the United States Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (the “PCAOB”) is unable to inspect for two consecutive years,” the prospectus says. Matthew Chen, a U.S. citizen, is the CEO and chairman of Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. Chen is also the managing director of Darong Hechuang (Guangdong) International Investment Corp. Earlier in his career, he was the global head of the credit derivative market making platform at J.P. Morgan’s London branch from 2011 to January 2018. Chen also controls the SPAC’s sponsor, Whale Management Corp. The sponsor, however, “has substantial ties with non-U.S. persons,” the prospectus says. On its way to going public, Flag Ship Acquisition Corp. cut the size of its SPAC IPO to 6.0 million units – down from 10.0 million units initially – and kept the IPO price at $10.00 per unit – according to an S-1/A filing in mid-December 2022. (For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on our website: IPOScoop.com ) Note: Never trade on proposed symbols. They have been known to change and you might buy something on the OTC Bulletin Board. To see what time the NASDAQ IPOs are expected to trade, please log in to: NASDAQTrader.com then scroll down to IPO Message. Disclosure: Nobody on the IPOScoop.com staff has a position in any stocks mentioned above, nor do they trade or invest in IPOs. The IPOScoop.com staff does not issue advice, recommendations or opinions. Disclaimer: A SCOOP Rating (Wall Street Consensus of Opening-day Premiums) is a general consensus taken, at press time, from Wall Street and investment professionals concerning how well an IPO might perform when it starts trading. The SCOOP Rating does not reflect the opinions of anyone associated with IPOScoop.com. The SCOOP ratings should not be taken as investment advice. The rating merely reflects the opinion of the professionals at the time of publication and is subject to last-minute changes due to market conditions, changes in a specific offering and other factors, such as changes in the proposed offering terms and the shifting of investor interest in the IPO. The information offered is taken from sources we believe to be reliable, but we cannot guarantee the accuracy.