Former Trump administration cabinet member and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to form a $345 million special purpose acquisition company (SPAC, also known as a shell company).
The filing shows that Ross, who served as former President Trump’s commerce secretary, applied to form Ross Acquisition Corp II and sought to raise $345 million.
Former Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow, who worked at CNBC, will join Ross’s team as the committee’s director.
SPAC could raise money from investors for the acquisition of a private company that would then go public.
“We are a newly organized blank check company (shell company) incorporated on January 22, 2021 and formed for the purpose of effecting a merger, capital exchange, asset acquisition, stock purchase, reorganization or similar combination of businesses with one or more businesses, which we refer to in this prospectus as our initial business combination. ” the SEC filing said.
Ross and his team added that they have not “identified any business combination targets, and we have not had, nor has anyone had, direct or indirect substantive discussions on our behalf regarding the identification of any business combination targets.
The company also said it intends to identify a target business through all or most of its operations in Asia, North America or Europe.
Ross will serve as SPAC’s president, chairman and chief executive officer. And Kudlow will serve as a director of SPAC.
Other executives include Stephen J. Toy, Nadim Z. Qureshi, Edward A. Snyder and Lord William Astor – a British businessman and politician who serves in the British House of Lords as a Conservative hereditary lord and a member of the prominent Astor Family.
Ross Acquisition said it plans to list its units on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “ROSS.
SPAC, known as the “blank check company,” had a record year in 2020, raising more than $82 billion through an IPO. In January 2021, 91 SPACs raised $25.09 billion, according to data provider Dealogic.
Ross is among a growing number of politicians and government officials supporting SPACs. Prominent figures including former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and former Trump adviser Gary Cohn have also raised millions of dollars through their blank check companies.
Meanwhile, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has joined the Conservative Partnership Institute, a think tank led by former Republican Senator Jim DeMint. Institute, CPI announced last week.
“In my years in Congress and the White House, I have repeatedly witnessed the great work CPI has done to support conservatives on Capitol Hill and in the Trump Administration,” Meadows said last week. “Often flying under the radar, no group has played a more critical role in helping conservatives maintain their principles in a hostile Washington swamp.”
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