Ex-TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer, Former Disney CFO Tom Staggs & Shaquille O’Neal Join Forest Road SPAC For Media M&A
There’s a SPAC born every minute – today a new one called Forest Road Acquisition registered with the SEC to raise $250 million and hunt for media and entertainment deals with executives and advisors from former TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer and former Walt Disney CFO Tom Staggs to basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal.
SPACs, or special purpose acquisition vehicles, proliferate when there’s more money floating around than there are places to invest for various reasons — now that’s mainly COVID.
The SPAC is a shell company of film financing firm Forest Road. Harry Sloane and Jeff Saganksy, formerly of MGM, done a half dozen SPACs over the years. Playboy just launched one last week. They raise cash from investors to go public in a kind of modified IPO and buy companies in any sector they like.
They’re officially called “blank check” entities so investors need to trust they know what they’re