Most of the investors who sat in the special-purpose acquisition corporation (SPAC) MTech Acquisition for more than a year before deciding they didn’t like the investment into MJ Freeway must be questioning their decision to abandon their investment this week. According to an SEC 8-K filing issued by Akerna (NASDAQ: KERN) this morning, the vast majority of the SPAC investors redeemed their shares on Monday before the deal closed.
At the Special Meeting, holders of 4,452,042 shares of MTech common stock sold in its initial public offering exercised their right to redeem those shares for cash at a price of $10.23841733 per share, for an aggregate of approximately $45,581,863.96.
MTech Acquisition went public in late January 2018 at $10 per unit, which included warrants at $11.50, selling 5.75 million altogether and raising $57.5 million in gross proceeds. MTech never resonated with investors and sat near the $10 price even after the MJ Freeway acquisition was announced in late 2018:
On 6/14, the day before the special meeting, MTech Acquisition closed at $10.50, and 77% of the holders opted to take back $10.238. KERN, which is trading in the pre-market today at $70, closed yesterday at $49.80, meaning that the early investors missed out on paper gains of $176 million by redeeming their shares. At least they got to keep their warrants!
According to the filing, Akerna has 10.4 million shares and 6 million warrants, giving it a fully-diluted market cap of $817 million, or about 73X FY19 sales of approximately $11 million that were affirmed in an exclusive New Cannabis Ventures interview with CEO Jessica Billingsley on Tuesday. FY18 revenue was $10.5 million.
