A new special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Bellevue Life Sciences Acquisition Corp. started trading on the Nasdaq on Friday.
The Bellevue-based SPAC is offering 6 million units at $10 per share. The offering is expected to close on Tuesday, and the company will trade under the ticker symbol BLACU.
A spokesperson said the company couldn't comment beyond the press release for now.
A regulatory filing lists Kuk Hyoun Hwang as the company's CEO and names Bellevue Global Life Sciences Investors as the company's sponsor. Hwang is the founding and managing partner of Bellevue Capital Management, which is the parent company of both Bellevue Global Life Sciences Investors and Bellevue Life Sciences Acquisition Corp., the filing notes.
Bellevue Capital Management is "an investment management and advisory group focused on the global health care sector, with subsidiaries based in the United States, South Korea and Switzerland," the filing notes. Bellevue Global Life Sciences Investors' headquarters is in the Skyline Tower in downtown Bellevue, according to public records.
SPACs are often called "blank check companies" because they are launched without a business line and start trading on the public markets. The goal is to find and merge with an existing business to take that company public. Seattle-based companies like Rover, a pet care resource, and Porch, a home services marketplace and software provider, have gone public recently through SPAC deals. SPACs soared in popularity in 2020 and 2021, but their popularity has plummeted during the market downturn.
"While we will not be limited to a particular industry or geographic region in our identification and acquisition of a target company, we intend to focus our search on companies in the health care industry," Bellevue Life Sciences Acquisition Corp. said in a release.
Seattle-based investment bank Cascadia Capital on Feb. 6 announced it was taking RealWear, a hardware company based in Vancouver, Washington, public through a SPAC merger with its company, Cascadia Acquisition Corp. The companies expect the deal to close in the second half of this year.
