Cashing in on Blank Check Companies: The Latest IPO Craze Is Fully Endorsed in Philadelphia
The Cohen family has never been afraid to branch out when it comes to their business ventures.
Between matriarch Betsy Cohen, her husband Ed Cohen, and sons Daniel and Jonathan, they have run two banks, a natural gas and oil extraction company, an asset manager, an investment firm focused on residential mortgages, and a commercial real estate company.
So it should come as no surprise that the Cohens have been at the forefront of the recent wave of special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, raising money from investors for the purpose of buying privately held companies to take public. Their Philadelphia-based blank check companies have completed or initiated seven such deals since 2015, and contributed to making SPACs all the rage this year.
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Brad Shiffman, who leads a SPAC practice at Blank Rome, said they shorten the IPO process and eliminate the amount of regulatory scrutiny a company faces when turning public.
“Right now, this is a much safer way to go public,” said Shiffman, who has been doing such deals for 15 years. “You don’t have to worry about pricing. You are negotiating with just one party as opposed to multiple ones.”
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“Cashing in on Blank Check Companies: The Latest IPO Craze Is Fully Endorsed in Philadelphia,” by Jeff Blumenthal was published in the Philadelphia Business Journal on October 8, 2020.