The Deli Is a Weird SPAC
Also Goldman culture, Apollo reshuffling, Voltswagen investigation, a SPAC drug lawsuit and hedge-fund meetings in athleisure.
I sort of assumed that Hometown International Inc., the $100 million or maybe $2 billion deli, would remain a mystery forever, but Mark Vandevelde of the Financial Times seems to have found the person behind it and asked him what he’s up to, and he cheerfully explained it. His name is Manoj Jain and he’s the co-chief investment officer of Maso Capital Investments Ltd., a Hong Kong fund that is one of Hometown’s biggest shareholders. And the explanation is more or less what everyone thought it was: The deli is a shell company that will be used to take an Asian company public in the U.S., sort of like a special purpose acquisition company but sleepier.
From the beginning of the deli saga, this explanation — that the deli was going to do a reverse merger to take an Asian company public and then jettison its deli business, change its name and be the public vehicle for that unrelated new business — seemed to be the most likely answer, and here you go. U.S. public-company status — even on the over-the-counter markets, without a stock exchange listing — is valuable, so it makes sense that some investors in Hong Kong might put $2.5 million into a barely operating deli to buy its public status, and then try to find a company that could make better use of that status.