By Sabrina Valle and Echo Wang <\/p>\n
NEW YORK, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Drone technology company Space-Eyes, backed by Eric Trump, will appoint a former Delta Force officer, a former Morgan Stanley investment banking chief and two others \u200cto its post-merger board as it prepares to become a public company, according to two people familiar with \u200cthe matter. <\/p>\n
Space-Eyes said last month it had agreed to go public in the fourth quarter through a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, merger with blank-check \u200bcompany McKinley Acquisition Corp. <\/p>\n
The deal valued the combined company at $638 million, including cash held by the SPAC, and assigned an enterprise value of $370 million to the operating business. <\/p>\n
The Miami-based research-and-development company, which has said it generates about $1 million in annual revenue, develops AI-powered geospatial intelligence and counter-drone technologies for governments and agencies. <\/p>\n
The board appointments are intended to bolster the company’s expertise in national security, defense manufacturing, \u200cmergers and acquisitions, capital markets and corporate \u2060governance as it prepares to scale up, enter manufacturing through third parties and start worldwide sales, the people said, declining to be identified as the information is not yet public. <\/p>\n
The public company directors \u2060are expected to include retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Reese, founder of security consultancy TigerSwan; Terry Meguid, a former head of worldwide investment banking at Morgan Stanley; Wharton School management professor Harbir Singh; and aerospace entrepreneur Norm Christensen, people close to the discussions said. <\/p>\n
ERIC \u200bTRUMP \u200bAN INVESTOR, ADVISER <\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump’s son Eric joined Space-Eyes in the \u200bsecond quarter as its third-largest investor and a \u200cstrategic adviser. <\/p>\n
Company executives said in July Eric Trump helped introduce potential board candidates but would not serve on the board himself. <\/p>\n
Reese spent 25 years in the U.S. Army, including assignments with the 75th Ranger Regiment and the special operations unit commonly known as Delta Force, according to the people. <\/p>\n
Singh, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, has long served on the board of Space-Eyes, which was created in 2001. He specializes in strategy, innovation and acquisitions. <\/p>\n
Christensen previously owned aerospace manufacturer AAE Aerospace \u200cbefore its acquisition by Karman Space & Defense, the people said. <\/p>\n
Meguid spent 25 \u200byears at Morgan Stanley, where he served as head of worldwide investment \u200bbanking, before leaving in 2005 and becoming a founding \u200bpartner of advisory firm Perella Weinberg Partners. <\/p>\n
The company has said its valuation is based on anticipated growth \u200cin demand for counter-drone systems, military intelligence software \u200band autonomous defense technologies rather than \u200bexisting revenue. <\/p>\n
The valuation includes $80 million worth of shares that may be issued later if specified targets are met. The deal assumes McKinley’s trust account will contribute about $176 million in cash to the combined company. <\/p>\n
The valuation also includes the \u200bfirst $12 million tranche of a planned private \u200cinvestment from outside investors. Eric Trump’s investment amount was not disclosed. <\/p>\n
The combined company is expected to trade on \u200bNasdaq under the ticker symbol CUAS, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals. <\/p>\n
(Reporting by Sabrina Valle and Echo \u200bWang in New York; Editing by Jamie Freed and Barbara Lewis) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Sabrina Valle and Echo Wang NEW YORK, Aug 21 (Reuters) – Drone technology company Space-Eyes, backed by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[81,2678,94745,74],"class_list":["post-212849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eric-trump","tag-eric-trump","tag-morgan-stanley","tag-sabrina-valle","tag-trump"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117205854104454766","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}