The Florida Panthers may score!
If all goes as planned, the National Hockey League team will be picked up by a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) – also known as a "blank check company" – that boasts a management team including baseball legend Hank Aaron. The acquiring company, Sports Properties Acquisition Corp (AMEX: HMR), which leads to something of a spooky acronym, is rumored to be making a move on the hockey team for $240 million. If this works, the SPAC called SPAC would be one of only a few companies recently to round up investors for this type of deal.
In the SPAC world, investors look to management teams more than acquisition targets, as the company raises money first and makes the acquisition later. Investors may not know what they will wind up owning. For this deal, the likes of Aaron and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo were enough to get investors to reach into their pockets, ultimately to buy a hockey team that's about as far from snow and ice as possible. According to Forbes, the Panthers is the 24th most valuable team in the NHL ... out of only 30.
According to Reuters, this transaction probably won't signal a resurgence of SPAC action. After a solid 2007, SPAC IPOs fell 70% (by dollar volume) in 2008, and this deal was the first of 2009 – and half the year's already over
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