Churchill Capital Corp V (CCV) Signs Non-Binding LOI

Churchill Capital Corp V (NYSE:CCV) announced in an 8-K filing this morning that it has signed a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) to combine with a target company and will be extending its transaction deadline to March 18, 2023.

The filing gave no other hints about the target other than it is a “private company that meets the Company’s investment criteria and principles and with which the Company has had discussions over an extended period of time.”

Churchill V’s announcement cuts it close to the SPAC’s transaction deadline, which was coming up on Sunday, December 18 and it had not scheduled an extension vote. But, it automatically gains three months more on its clock with an LOI in hand under the terms of its prospectus.

The SPAC also announced that it would be holding its trust purely in cash rather than government securities or money market funds moving forward. This is done to avoid any risk that the SPAC might be classified as an unregistered investment company, which is still up for debate in the pending new SEC SPAC rule.

Other teams have made this change as well, including the recently liquidated Austerlitz I & II. In practical terms, it means that Churchill V will generate no further interest.

The Churchill team has two other SPACs currently searching without a definitive agreement in hand: CVII and CCVI. But these each have an extra two months with deadlines coming up on February 16, 2023.

Nonetheless, there has been a question about the future of this prominent SPAC team’s remaining vehicles since it was announced that Michael Klein, serial SPAC sponsor and both CEO and chairman of all three, was stepping up to lead Credit Suisse’s (NYSE:CS) spin-off CS Boston.

The answer is that Klein is still in the SPAC game for now, and he has given himself a bit more time to make a firm decision.