(Bloomberg) — Former Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit is the latest financier to attach his name to a blank-check firm.
Pandit, who led the U.S. lender from 2007 through 2012, has joined special purpose acquisition company Compass Digital Acquisition Corp. as a senior adviser, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The vehicle is seeking to raise $200 million, and will focus on striking a deal with a company that operates in artificial intelligence, analytics, cloud enablement, cybersecurity, blockchain, health-care transformation and software-as-a-service, among other sectors, the person said. Terms aren’t finalized and could still change.
Former Wipro Ltd. CEO Abidali “Abid” Neemuchwala is set to be the SPAC’s chairman and CEO, while Burhan Jaffer will be chief financial officer, said the person. Jaffer has held roles including chief strategy officer at Conduent Inc. and venture partner at Social Impact Capital.
A Compass Digital spokesperson didn’t immediately provide comment. A representative for Pandit declined to comment, as did a representative for Citigroup, which is in talks to underwrite the SPAC.
Former bank executives including former Credit Suisse Group AG CEO Tidjane Thiam and ex-Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn have each attached themselves to SPACs, joining dozens of finance and technology titans hunting down a deal. A SPAC led by former UBS AG CEO Sergio Ermotti in July inked a merger with fashion house Zegna.
Amid a crackdown from regulators on accounting policies, investor enthusiasm for SPACs has waned in recent months, in part due to lackluster earnings from certain companies that elected to go public through mergers with blank-check firms. Appetite for so-called private investment in public equities has also proved limited, encouraging some companies to pursue alternatives such as additional funding rounds or traditional initial public offerings as a means of raising capital.
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