Beneficient to Go Public Via Merger in $3.5B SPAC Deal with Avalon Acquistion
The Dallas financial services firm The Beneficient Co Group, L.P. has agreed to go public through a merger with San Francisco blank-check company Avalon Acquistion Inc. The deal values Beneficient at $3.5 billion.
Beneficient provides liquidity and services to qualified individuals and smaller institutions invested in private equity, venture capital and other alternative assets.
“We are working to democratize the industry starting with a simple, secure, rapid and cost-effective solution to what we saw as the most foundational and pressing need: liquidity,” Beneficient founder and chief executive Brad Heppner said in the statement.
Heppner will continue to lead the company after previously founding and/or acquiring 10 alternative asset-operating companies, including The Crossroads Group and Capital Analytics.
The merger comes at a challenging time for the SPAC market as several returned money they raised after not finding suitable targets. Beneficient is operating profitably, but many SPAC transactions involve companies that are not yet profitable.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023, when the company will be renamed Beneficient and listed on the Nasdaq.
