Playboy to return to stock market after nine years through SPAC deal (updated)

ConnectM Technology Solutions

01/10/2020 12:48

(Adds background on Playboy, details on investment)
    Oct 1 (Reuters) - Playboy Enterprises Inc will return to the
stock market through a merger with the blank check company
Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp  MCAC.O  in a deal valued at
$381 million, the companies said on Thursday. 
    As part of the deal, Mountain Crest will sell $50 million of
its common stock to institutional investors. 
    The merger comes nine years after Playboy went private in a
$207 million deal led by its late founder Hugh Hefner and
private equity firm Rizvi Traverse Management. 
    Last month, Reuters reported Playboy's plans to go public.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2GF1AD
    After the deal closes, which is expected in the first
quarter of 2021, the combined company will be listed on the
Nasdaq under the ticker "PLBY".
    A blank-check company, or a special purpose acquisition
company (SPAC), uses capital raised through an initial public
offering to buy a private company, usually within two years.
Investors are not notified in advance what the SPAC will buy.   
    Mountain Crest raised $50 million in an initial public
offering earlier this year with the goal of buying a private
company. SPACs have emerged as an increasingly popular route to
public markets over a traditional IPO in 2020.
    Playboy stopped printing its flagship magazine earlier this
year, ending a nearly seven-decade run on newsstands that began
in 1953 with a debut issue featuring Marilyn Monroe.
    The company has expanded beyond its media business to
refashion itself as a lifestyle brand and is eyeing expansion
into sexual wellness.

 (Reporting by C Nivedita in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva
and Krishna Chandra Eluri)
 ((C.Nivedita@thomsonreuters.com; Twitter: @NivCholayil;))