Top SPACs To Watch For
1h 0m | Sep 20, 2021EVCON - The Driving Force Behind Green Transportation
Meet the entrepreneurs who are driving Electric Vehicles forward and discover the budding investment opportunities in the space.
Join Us Virtually September 22 - Register here for FREE
Episode Summary:
On today's SPACs Attack Chris & Money Mitch go into the watchlist to find the top SPACs stock moving. We also have an interview with the CEO of HotelPlanner.
Guests:
Astrea Acq. merger partner HotelPlanner’s CEO, Timothy Hentschel (ASAX)
SPACs September Calendar:
- 9/22 LATN merger vote with Procaps Group
- 9/22 AMHC merger vote with Jasper Therapeutics
- 9/28 DMYI merger vote with IonQ
- 9/28 MAAC merger vote with Roivant Sciences
Hosts:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/STORYInvestors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chriskatje
For FASTER NEWS and IN-DEPTH market data, check out Benzinga Pro. For a free two-week trial go to http://pro.benzinga.com/register
- Get 20% off Benzinga PRO https://benzinga.grsm.io/youtube20
- Become a BENZINGA AFFILIATE and earn 30% on new subscriptions
Disclaimer: All of the information, material, and/or content contained in this program is for informational purposes only. Investing in stocks, options, and futures is risky and not suitable for all investors. Please consult your own independent financial adviser before making any investment decisions.
Unedited Transcript
What's going on traders. Yes. We made it to a. Specs attack. We got some top specs to talk about. We're going to be looking what's on the radar. What's the watch out for yes, the market is going down right now, but we have been seeing the specs, get another lift. We'll see how they continue to move and like always welcome to the specs attack.
We've got a great interview for you for you today. Of course, we're going to go ahead and get into hotel planner with the CEO, just stay tuned and hit the light button. Let's get started. Specks attack. Get access to actionable news and market research with all the information you need to invest smarter and profit faster.
Start your free trial today@prodotbenzinga.com. What's going on my family out there. Don't worry. Sue, you enjoy the beach. It's a red day. I understand if you're sitting back relaxing, enjoying the day to day and just going to listen in on the interview. I got no problem with that. Let's go ahead and bring on my friend and you guys.
Christo pedia, what's going on? What's going on, brother? Yeah. Happy to be here. It's Monday the start of another week. I mean, I wish I was sitting on the beach too, because I mean, it's a red day out there, Mitch. So time to probably sit on them, hands don't look at your portfolio. Or if you had stocks on your watch list today could be a buying opportunity.
But again, please use caution as we are seeing a lot of red out there for everyone. Yeah. It's just one of those days where, um, this is what I always say. This is one of those days where you really got to know your risk levels. You know, it's okay to cut positions if you're finding yourself below that risk amount, because yes, I know stocks can come back and a lot of times we have seen these big.
Eventually just get bought back up and you'll see a stock go through your price point. But what I always say is remember to the systematic trade, because at the end of the day, if you stay systematic, you keep yourself in the mathematical advantage. Once you lose, you go outside of your system, let's say, um, you're supposed to cut 5% losers and you wake up today and it's at six or seven and you're like, you know what?
I'm going to hold. And see if it comes back. Next thing you know, that position is going down that minus 10%. And what you're really doing is you're killing yourself on the next two to three traits. What you do is you put the pressure on, on the next trade because that one trade just cost you more than one trade.
It costs you pretty much two trades there. And so with that being said, it puts the pressure for you to get back in your accurate ways. So what I always say is just try to find what system you want to stay to and stay to that system. I understand that there's some tough days and that's always going to happen.
But one thing I always say is find what works best for you, and then look at your data to see if you can stick to that system. Definitely. I mean, always know your risk reward and you know, as much as just sad, you know, have a plan. Right. Uh, you should be prepared for red days, ma Metro, the market. Doesn't just go up every day.
I mean, a common, common misbelief out there, but, uh, it, it doesn't so, uh, be prepared for a day like today and yeah, I mean, know your risk reward. If, if you're looking at your portfolio today and you're down big and you're worried, that might mean that maybe you were in some riskier names and maybe you should diversify into, you know, a little bit more conservative approach here.
All right. I do want to let everybody know about a little secret them. Some people might not know today. Um, we're going to go ahead and do a little promo action here. If you use the code happy fall, you're going to be able to save dirty 5%. I know that you guys are probably out there wanting to keep in the game and the Benzinga pro game.
Hey there, you guys go happy, happy fall there. A pro subscription. 35%. I'd definitely check it out. All right, Chris, let's go ahead and let's get to our headlines. I know you got a couple of them before we get to our interview today, which we'll be getting into a little bit later today with hotel planners.
Let's go ahead and take us back to those headlines. Chris, let us know what happened on the weekend. What should we be paying attention to this week? And of course, if there's any analyst ratings or something that we might've missed.
All right guys. Yeah. It's Monday always a decent amount of stuff to talk about to start the week up first, you know, as much side let's talk about some analyst ratings. We do have a factor therapeutics. So E F T R, this has been one of the hottest names out there, right? A biotech spec deal that really rocketed higher.
So it's actually getting an analyst note today, stifle initiating coverage with a hold rating and a price target of $20 shares are down 9% today to 1760. Um, you know, this thing has been a rocket, right at hit all the way up to 70, um, on that candle, it's also been over $30 recently. Um, but a nice to see the analyst note today.
So keep an eye out E F T. And then we have DNA, right? Ginkgo, Bioworks, uh, now publicly traded as D and a love that ticker HSBC, initiating coverage with a buy rating and a price target of $14. I talked last week, right? In my big things about DNA. We're going to be, is it going to get that mainstream media attention?
And it had a CNBC interview on Friday and also will people understand the story of it, right? All the different segments that operates in all the different business lines that it owns. And here you have an analyst initiating coverage. So I love the long-term story of DNI. I actually thought we were going to see a bit of a dip last week, but that dip may not happen now as this analyst note coming in and that attention to what this company does, um, just to keep an eye out on DNA, uh, going forward.
And then we have draft Kings D K N G. So loop capital reiterating by rating. Um, they said that draft Kings is gaining market share and recently overtook fan duel in the rankings of the top us sports book app on Apple's app store. Not a huge surprise here. Right. We know by now that fan duel and draft Kings are really the top two players in sports betting.
Um, gaining market share though is a nice, uh, color addition here from the analysts. We are in the start of the NFL and college football season. Draft Kings has been one that I have called out as a winner going into this season. So keep an eye out. Um, DK, N G and then we have L I C Y a lifecycle holdings.
So we had them on the show earlier this year Wedbush is starting coverage with an outperformed. And has a $14 price target, uh, analyst, Dan Ives calls it a attractive, pure play on recycling. So remember they recycle lithium ion batteries. Um, they have some deals out there with some companies there they're working on, you know, a great future.
This is a sustainability play, a recycling play. L I C Y a. I'm starting to like this one more and more, you know, I think as we get into the EBV space, we do need to recycle those batteries. And here you have a company that could be the, the pure play leader there. Um, and Wedbush, you know, I am a fan of this analyst in the ed space.
So definitely going to take a deeper dive into L I C Y F F I E. So Faraday future Metro. We haven't talked about this one a ton recently, but they actually had a event yesterday. So it was their 9 1 9 futurist day, um, where they announced some new business initiatives and the positive progress on the FF 91 production and vehicle delivery, which is why they did the 9 11 9 day yesterday, um, to, you know, hit on that 91 vehicle name that they have.
They talked about their relationship with Palentier. Um, you know, they, they also talked about, you know, how everything is going as planned with their supply chain and production. So FFI E her get some more attention after that day yesterday. And we have Velodyne LIDAR, V L D R announcing that AGM systems deployed their alpha prime center.
Um, again, as we talk these LIDAR stocks, right? It's important to get, you know, those new deals, those new partnerships. So Velodyne announcing one today and then offer pad OPA D it's been a high riser. Um, you know, since completing that SPAC deal, um, 1266 today down 7%, but this was one that was over $20 last week, they announced, uh, Kansas city and St.
Louis as their two newest markets. So as we shift to the digital, a home buying platform, you know, a lot of these companies still need to expand on a national scale. Um, you know, Zillow, Opendoor, and now offer pad and offer pad adding two big markets here with Kansas city and St. Louis in Missouri. Then we have human site, H U M a, they announced the issuance of three patents covering their implantable bio engineered human tissue platform.
Their patents are now over 23 in international markets and 119 patents covering their proprietary platform in the U S a human site. Again, this is one that has a nice term approach in my eyes here. Um, but H U M a on watch after grabbing these additional patents and we have Archer AC H R ringing the bell, this.
Um, so they tweeted out the future of electric. Aviation is spelled a C H R today as a historic milestone for Archer. As we joined the New York stock exchange and ring the opening bell. It's a moment of celebration for those who have helped us get to where we are today. Teammates, partners, investors, and fans.
So Archer ACHR now publicly traded after completing that deal. Keep an eye out on this one and the EVT O L space, um, going forward. And then I want to highlight Jonathan Rothberg, right? Dr. Jonathan Rothberg. We had him on the show, not too long ago. He's got three companies that are going public via SBACK or have gone public via speck.
He had a big week last week, right. And he put out a tweet. That was awesome to recap this. So I don't know if anyone watched the apple of that, right. Apple iPhone 13. During that event, they actually show. On the iPad, um, uh, beef fly, right butterfly networks with their, um, portable ultrasound. So that was shown on the iPad screen during Apple's.
Also space acts, just put the inspiration for in the space over the weekend. And they showed off butterfly during a live video chat with those four astronauts and doing the, all the portable ultrasound in space. And also hyperfine another company going public, H C H Q um, is working with Madonna on saving children's lives in international hospitals.
So definitely a big week for Jonathan Rothberg specs out there. No, we do have one deal announced this morning. Ticker is G L B L. This is a deal for a Tita men group and Elvaria investments. It will create a leading independent global investment firm. Um, the combined company will oversee $54 billion in assets under management, uh, four continents, 11 countries, 25 cities.
They use a globally scaled multifamily office strategy. Um, they also have a huge presence in the ESG. Uh, governance global real estate and private market groups, revenue expected to hit $215 million this year up 24%, $247 million in fiscal 2022 up 15%. And the deal values of the company at $1.09 billion, G L B L, and Mitch.
Interesting note on the spec deal, they will actually keep the same ticker going forward. So it will go from ticker, G L B L to ticker, G L B L. So no ticker change on this spec deal that was announced today. So one deal announced today to start the week and we had four deals last week met. So time will tell how many deals we get for the week.
All right. So, Hey, there's a couple of exciting things there to know. Um, first things I want to mention is, yeah, don't worry. Sue Madonna's we're family too, you know, that's my sister, you know? No, but I just wanted to stay here. Uh, I've been looking at a couple of these in DNA clear one that we saw that would probably come back with the interest that it had.
Um, definitely making a big move on up. I'm going to keep that one in my radar and OPAC is still the one that. We'll kick myself a little bit. Definitely should have been able to been a part of that move and sell into the twenties would have been easy, a hundred percent winner, and I'll keep an eye on OPAC to see if he gets another run, but as he's, as he saw also getting mentions there, uh, we'll we'll pay attention to see, of course be flight is on my radar.
Um, a lot of these products have actually done really great and we'll see, I mean, it gets, keeps getting mentioned and it gets mentioned with bigger brands, which is, I think is important. Like you're seeing here with apple. I think that's definitely going to get a lift in the long run, but we'll keep an eye on it.
All right. So up next guys, we're going to be getting into our interview with hotels, planners, CEO, but before then I want to take a quick look at the watch list. See what we're seeing out there and see if there's any movers to talk about.
All right, let's go ahead and take a look. And it wouldn't, you know, it top leader here. It was one that I wanted to point out because we have been seeing products like this started coming back is outlet. I'll let getting a nice lift today up about almost 7%. Um, from about those five twenties up there to the five nineties, I was actually interested this morning to see if we would get towards $5 because I was going to take a shot, but it looks like I wasn't the only one thinking this morning near that $5, we've got towards a low of five, 10, and maybe it should have taken that shot.
But now we're already up there towards five nineties. I'll look for a pull back towards five fifties, but this one's an interesting one. Of course we did. Uh, the product well, as we did an interview on the product, but we'll see how this one continues. Nice volume here at the bottom 4 million shares traded good bullish engulfing candle.
Now those lows, as long as those can hold, we should be looking good, which is five 18 an outlet making a good move on up. And the other one you want to mention Chris from the movies list? Um, I would say the other one that caught my eye was S N a X strive foods. Um, ticker snacks, all snack, also up 5% today.
Um, you know, I, you, you said at metrics, some of these D specs that have gone down to the $5 level are starting to come back, starting to gain interest, uh, strive foods remember has investment from chanting. And also, um, the, the quarterback Justin Hiebert. Right? So we could see this as a play on getting more marketing and brand awareness.
So, uh, I I'm interested in SNA X here and also outlet as you pointed out, we will keep, it was on a watch of course, lucid continuing into the green is another one that watched. They get a pullback with the overall market, but trying to recover that high that we had on Friday. Just keep your eyes on that.
That's 2351. We need to get it above that and closing and see if it can continue to make a move towards 26 and 30. And that's of course, lucid motors. And we'll see if it gets that lucid dreams moving there. We'll definitely see after of course the EPA rating last week was so important for the stock.
We'll see if the stock continues to get lifts and maybe some ratings start changing with that EPA being released last week. All right, Chris, that's going to probably do it for our watch list. Now it's time to do what we do best, which is unlock some specs and like always Chris I'll let you take lead here.
Awesome guys. Yeah. Another exclusive interview here on specks attack. So joining us on the show today, we have the CEO of hotel planner, Timothy Henshaw. That company is going public with a stream acquisition Corp, ticker, a S a X a after the merger we'll trade as hotel planner, ticker, H O T P. Uh, Tim, welcome to specs attack.
Hey Chris, thanks for having me. Um, it's going to be a spectacular, uh, interview right back in tech. Spectacular. Of course we love it, Tim. Thanks for joining us on the show. Taking time out of your busy schedule, we talk all things, spec and D specs. So one of the first questions we always like to start with is, you know, why the decision to take hotel planner public via SPAC and was a traditional IPO also considered by your.
A traditional IPO was considered a SPAC was better, better because we're doing it three way merger. Um, we also, you know, need to be in the public space. We're growing so rapidly. Uh, we're putting up great numbers and we're an innovator we've been around for quite a while, but we're constantly pushing out new technology out there.
So it's important that we be able to raise money, to take our technology to the next. Awesome. So, yeah, as you said, a three-way merger, so after this merger is completed, the, this company is going to own hotel planner.com, meeting Satcom and reservations.com. Um, so together those websites offer access to book over 1 million global properties.
Um, so I know there's a lot to unpack here, Tim. So I'm just wondering if you can break down, you know, all three of these websites and kind of company units, um, and explain to us what exactly hotel planner.com meetings that com and reservations.com or. Sure. So hotel planners specializes in small, large groups, closed user group rates for individual.
Those are special discounted, um, opaque rates. Then meetings.com specializes in hotel and off-site venues for corporate, uh, groups as well as leisure groups. So think, um, finding that special venue and meetings.com and then, uh, for reservations.com specialize in making reservations, add hotels and over the phone, uh, desktop tablet, mobile device, uh, mainly leisure, individual reservations.
Awesome. So, you know, one of the things I saw in the presentation that caught my eye. Hotel planner offers closed user group rates to customers. Um, and that was listed as a differentiating factor to some of your competitors out there. Can you talk a little bit about this and how it keeps your company, you know, ahead of some of the competition?
Sure. These closed user group rates are heavily discounted, usually 50, 60% below. What, uh, the rate that is available to the public is we, uh, have access to these rates because we have direct connections for group inventory to over 50,000 hotels. We've, uh, signed up these hotels on an extranet that's proprietary.
Over the last, uh, 17 years. So it's been a close relationship with, on property, uh, hoteliers and they load up these special rates and then we share them through our network and, uh, uh, specifically through, uh, what we're also rebels revolutionizing, which is our gig economy, travel agent, uh, call center platform.
Perfect. So, you know, you mentioned relationships with over 50,000 hotels. You also have, you know, affiliate deals and OTA clients. So, you know, the big question here is, you know, customer acquisition, we talk a lot about right. For companies. So can you talk about how hotel planner, you know, acquires those customers and why those key partnerships are so important in the success of your business?
Sure. I mean, we acquire customers in the traditional way. Um, search engine marketing. So spending money with Google and Facebook and being in different sites like that. Um, we also have a very robust search engine optimization strategy because we have a lot of proprietary content, obviously being dominant in the group space.
It gives us, uh, content on meeting space and banquet space and all kinds of other information that a, your typical site wouldn't have. And on top of that, we have lots of affiliates, uh, you know, on the screen right now, you're talking about the knot and the wedding wire. They send us their, uh, For us to help them find the perfect hotel for their destination wedding or the, uh, hotel for their, uh, out-of-town wedding guests.
Or if you go on to nine plus rooms on, uh, nine plus rooms, search on Expedia or nine plus rooms, search on Priceline or kayak or any of those kinds of sites. Um, you know, that is where we, uh, help with our proprietary, uh, technology that does, uh, large and small groups. So it's a big moat that we built over the last 17 years.
Um, we basically dominate that, uh, group hotel booking space, and now we're taking that to the next level, by taking these special closed user group rates that we can share with individual travelers and getting them out there, and not only through our website and the apps, but also through the gig economy, travel agents.
So that helps with people that want, you know, high touch and customers. Perfect. Yeah, I know, you know, there's always a lot of interest in finding stocks related to weddings, right. Obviously with a wedding market is huge. Um, you know, post COVID, we're going to see a surgeon wedding. So, I mean, if you're out there watching hotel planner, it looks like, you know, has a big relationship here to wedding.
So a wedding stock to, to possibly watch. Um, I, I want to talk a little bit about growth. So, you know, as you mentioned a three-way merger, you're going to bring in reservations.com and you're going to shift their offline bookings to that closed user group platform. Can you just talk a little bit about the synergies and why the decision to, you know, also acquire this company along with the spec merger?
So reservations.com does have their reservations over. So we saw that as a huge opportunity because we have a proprietary gig economy, travel agent call center. Um, these, what makes it different is these are people located all around the world, um, and they can be working, um, in your local city or in the city that you're looking to go to.
Um, so right now reservations.com uses a traditional, uh, call center that that's be based overseas. And we're going to take that to the next level by helping their customers get local, um, help through the gig economy, travel agent. So that's one, um, big synergy and the other synergies with closed user group rates, their customers will start getting a special proprietary deals in special close user group, uh, environments.
So there's two big synergies there and we're very excited about it. I think to go back to what we were saying, we need. Doing this back was the best way to do this because not only are we going to have extra cash for, uh, growth for our use of proceeds, but we're going to have a lot of organic growth from just the synergies between the mergers.
So if you're looking at us first and other spec, uh, you know, w I believe, and, you know, the numbers will prove this out. We just put out a proxy last week and you can see all the growth we had in just the first half of this year that we have, you know, twice the growth that you're out of spec we'll have.
Cause we've got the synergies between the merger and we've got the use of proceeds. Perfect Tim, you know, that segues into my next question. Right? You talk a little bit about growth there. We, we did have, you know, the pandemic, right. And it did hurt, you know, the overall travel market, but one of the big highlights from your presentation was that, you know, yeah, there was a downtrend in travel, but hotel planner, you know, outperformed peers in terms of, you know, during pandemic that drop-off, can you explain, you know, how hotel planner was able to, you know, not see as big of a decline as some of your competition?
Yes, Chris. Very informative. You read that debt closely. Yeah, that's good. Uh, yeah, so we had, uh, only a 23% drop in revenue over 2020. And we, uh, all, a lot of that to the gig economy, travel agents. What we found right away over COVID is that people had questions. And when people have questions, they wanted to pick up the phone and ask, uh, an expert.
And so then when immediately we said, let's, let's get the best people we can. We used our AI and our platform, uh, to recruit the best people and, um, then give people local advice. So then it grew from there and we're actually, you know, Proud to say that Delta has not affected us. Um, in fact, any kind of disruption, like we just had hurricane Ida, our booking skyrocketed over hurricane Ida.
Uh, people will typically want to pick up the phone and we have over 30,001, 800 numbers out there, uh, that are helping, you know, get the right information to the right customers. And they're picking up the phone and the AI is immediately, uh, pushing them to the correct travel agent that can help them with their question.
I love that, you know, we talk, you know, a lot about shifting to, you know, an online model and here you're talking about, you know, call center, actually providing some growth as people wanted that human interaction, uh, not something have, I don't push it like that. It's not call center. It look, it's very technical because it's a voiceover IP system.
What we have is people who are at home, have a headset they're connected to a high-speed internet connection with a laptop. When you, when we connect the call to them, they have. Information in front of them on their desktop that helps them answer questions quicker. So we're high breading, uh, the latest technology with human touch.
We've always set out to do that because our name hotel planner is like wedding planner or event planner, but for hotels, hotel planner. So if you look at a long history of the company, it's always about the hybrid approach of high customer service. You would expect from a wedding planner or event planner, but the automation that you would get through technology and the internet.
And so we basically just did that in the gig economy, travel agent model, and it's taking off. I mean, every people love it right now. If you go into the homepage of hotel planner, it talks about our Alexa app. And as you talk to a less Alexa and ask, uh, Alexa to connect you with a hotel. Uh, and Alexa will then ask you a couple of questions, but then connects you, uh, to a gig economy, travel agents for that local advice.
So it's that perfect hybrid between, you know, robotics and an automation and human touch. Think of it like a Robocop, you know, as opposed to a Terminator, what would you rather do you want to book travel with Robocop, not with Terminator. We give you the Robocop. So you, you know, you mentioned technology here in two big growth items, artificial intelligence and machine learning are mentioned in the presentation as areas, you know, where you're going to spend money from the proceeds of this merger.
Can you talk a little bit about the growth of artificial intelligence and machine learning and how those will play into the hotel planner ecosystem? Yeah, exactly. So we're proud that we're a. Founded by one of the most brilliant engineers out there. Uh, John Prince, my co-founder, um, was top of his class in computer science.
So he has picked a great team around that. And part of the use of proceeds is we want to continue to grow that team and get the very best talent, uh, so we can continue to grow our AI because we see all of these ways that AI can help in what we do. So not only as I described connecting the right in real time, the right customer to the right gig economy, travel agent, but also searching out the right customer because, you know, there's all this information out there and people are traffic is constantly moving around.
So what makes our, you know, uh, platform better than the next platform is finding that person out of all that massive amount of data. And that's where the AI comes into. And I have to say that we're very effective in that and our numbers show it if, uh, people want to go and take a look at that proxy we just filed last week.
They'll see it in the number. So part of the spec merger, you know, as I said, was to acquire, you know, reservations.com via the three-way merger. One of the big questions, you know, with public companies is always, you know, M and a. So my question for you, and I'm not sure if you can answer it, Tim is, you know, is there a plan here to continue, you know, looking at acquiring additional companies that can, you know, evolve hotel planner in the travel ecosystem?
No, absolutely. That is definitely what we have done and what we plan to do more of, one of the nice things about being a very niche and having the best engineers we can possibly find is that we can then take our superior technology and plug it in to other companies that we acquire that don't know or can't do what we do so we can instantly make them grow faster and more profitable.
That's the. Perfect. So I want to go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say yes, we plan to start acquiring as soon as next year. Okay, perfect. So I want to dive into finances a little bit. So, uh, you know, fiscal 2022 revenue estimate at $170 million and ahead of the record, 2019 total, uh, compounded annual growth rate of 42% from fiscal 20, 20 to 2023 expected.
So you mentioned M and a happening, you know, next year, my, my question would be as M and a priced into these projections at all. And also, how do you forecast this model with, you know, the pandemic kinda, you know, still going on a little bit, how hard is it to forecast a couple of years? So, uh, first question M and a is not priced into those numbers.
We're going to hit those revenues easily without any M and a, um, so M and a will all be bonus. And the reason we did that is because obviously, you know, we're not the only party making the decision to buy that company. Right. We have to find a willing seller so we can. But, you know, put the M and a into those numbers.
Cause we can't guarantee that we'll do it. We can guarantee that we're going to look and, uh, you know, go out strong to, to look for something and then make some good offers. But, uh, basically we guarantee you hitting those numbers without any M and a, as far as Delta, um, or, or COVID, um, you know, from what we've just seen with Delta, as I mentioned, it actually is helping us because more people are seeking out that phone number, uh, to get more local advice.
So, um, we're very comfortable with where we are, uh, right now over that, um, where you have a very competitive niche, the way we built the company and it shows in the numbers. So, yeah. Um, right now couldn't be more, um, confident. Okay. Perfect. And then the last question here with finances is, you know, the, the big P question, right?
Profitability. So, you know, in the presentation talking about scaling profitability, can you just get into, you know, some of the, the metrics here in terms of profits for hotel planner, glad you asked about profits. I like profits being a bootstrapped entrepreneur. That's what I lived on. And so I've when I go public, our big plan is to keep it profitable and grow profits.
And it's in our forecast. And we're happy to say that, you know, this year, our estimates were that we were going to have 6 million EBITDA. Well, in the first half, you look at proxy, we had 5 million EBITDA. So, you know, it looks like we're pretty good at profits already for this year. And you know, next year we're forecasting 20 million EBITDA.
And the year after that, we'll be at 30 million EBITDA. And if 2021 is in any indication, I think we can blow those numbers out of the water. Perfect Tim, anything else that, you know, investors and potential investors should be, you know, looking forward to, in terms of, you know, catalyst or upcoming events from your.
Yeah. So we're planning to do a big fundraiser for St Jude's and south beach over art Basel. On December 5th, it'll be at the Nobu hotel and we're going to give the world hospitality award to John. Is there the tennis player? Uh, Dylan Radigan, who is on our board is going to be our hosts. We're going to be giving awards to all the best suppliers in our industry too.
So that's going to be a big event and we plan to do more charity events like that. We're big into raising money for charity, just like Elon Musk just did with, um, going around the world and outer space. Obviously Elon Musk does it bigger and better than everybody else, but that's all right. He sets the bar here.
We're going to get there too. You know, I'm a bit younger, so I've got some time. Uh, but yeah, we both love St Jude's and we've been a long time supporter of St. Jude's for the last five years. So we've got that coming up. And then, you know, I'm based in Singapore, I'm planning to move back to London, where is where I left from.
Uh, and then I'll be closer to the states where our headquarters is in Florida. So we'll be doing a lot of events in Europe, Asia, uh, where our Singapore is our Asia headquarters and in the U S so we would love to have you, um, on December 5th, if you, if you like south beach and season over art Basel.
Awesome. Yeah, we'll have to, we'll have to keep that in mind. I would definitely love to come, Tim. Uh, I, I just thought of a question, you know, since you talked about all these international locations, um, can you talk a little bit about hotel planner, uh, revenue in terms of, you know, us versus international and how that breaks down and maybe some international growth plan.
Yeah. So we, uh, have an office in London, an office in Amsterdam. Our, uh, president of a Mia is actually Baz lemons, who was one of the early co-founders of booking.com. So he's got big plans for, for Europe. Um, I'm out here for the last two years with big plans in, uh, Asia. And then I'm happy to say of all the big, uh, online travel agency partners out here in Asia.
We're partnered up on the group or on C U G rates with almost all of them. So, uh, we expect, expect as the industry bounces back, our international business will continue to grow, grow, grow, but north America is where we were born and it's, you know, where the corporate global corporate headquarters there is still the majority of our revenue.
And I'm sure we will continue to be. Because people love the planner in, uh, in the states they just always have. And, uh, you know, being an innovator in the group space, we have, uh, quite a cult, like niche, niche following. And, uh, it's hard to compete with that. I know I've tried, I've lived over Latin net internationally for the last 11 years, but it's hard to keep up with the north America growth because we have so many great people there and people love us so much.
Awesome. Well, Tim, I think that's going to do it for our questions here. So again, everyone out there, you know, watching. Tim Henshall the CEO of hotel planner company is going public with a stra acquisition Corp, ticker a S a X. And after that merger will trade as ticker, H O T P hotel pipe, hot piping, hot pink.
That's that's going to be easy to remember it, Tim hot P the, the new meme ticker. You heard it here first. So, Tim, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule and joining us on specs attack today. Uh, you know, we look forward to following, you know, your company's progress and maybe seeing you, uh, in south.
Sounds great. Thanks Chris. Thanks Tim. Awesome guys. Well, you heard it, you know, another exclusive interview here on specs tech, hotel planner, um, you know, uh, post COVID travel recovery play, but they actually had decent numbers during COVID. You just heard Tim say, um, I really liked that. And Mitch, uh, uh, wheat, we talked about wedding stocks on some different shows before, you know, there aren't a ton of wedding plays out there other than your retail stocks.
Here's a company that helps book, you know, big blocks of rooms for a wedding. So if we see a surgeon weddings over the next couple of years, could hotel planner be a possible wedding? Hey, it definitely could be. I mean, at the end of the day, um, when you do a wedding, you're going to need a lot of rooms, right.
And everybody knows how stressful that can be. So I think this is definitely a wedding play and also reopening play. Um, as we continue to see, uh, travel, come back, we haven't seen the business, the business travel, but we've seen more leisure travel. I think that's what you're going to continue to see in this company.
And as, as a, you know, put in their presence, um, right here, you guys can see it. You know, uh, Chris was talking about this too, is how they had really shown some growth compared to let's say the other kind of companies you would think about booking Expedia, Trivago. You can see right there it's the numbers are pretty different, especially compared to the industry consensus of the 2019 revenue.
Yeah. I mean, look at that compared to, you know, some of the other big names out there. I like that resilience of holding up. I mean, Mitch, it, it's hard for these travel companies, right? To talk about some of their 20, 20 and 2021 numbers. But here you have hotel planner, you know, saying no like w w we're good.
Right? Our numbers were okay, we're beating our record numbers this year and, you know, going forward, it's going to grow even more. So I like that. Um, who wants to get married these days is the comment in the chat. There are some people out there that want to get married, believe it or not. Right. That's not a style yet.
Not yet. Not yet. Right. All right. I haven't seen it go out of style either, man. Uh let's let's go ahead and we'll take a look here at some movers. Now, of course, this is a time when you guys can put some movers in the chat. We'll definitely talk about them. If you guys got one that you guys want to take a look at, this is your chance.
Go ahead and drop it in right now, but don't forget, you got to hit that. Like, if you want to touch on those tickets,
all right guys, smash that, like, let's get this started. You guys throw some tickers up in there. Chris, I'll go to you first. What is on your radar this week? What are you looking out for? Possibly get a little bit of a. Yeah. So before we get into tickers, let's hit on this week's calendar real quick. I want us to save this for the end of the show.
We got through that interview. Hopefully everyone has smashed the, like already guys. We have four votes this week. So up first, tomorrow we have fuse F U S E with money lion. So we had the money lion interview, you know, a couple of weeks ago. And then they got some crypto exposure. It's a FinTech play. How are we holding up there on the chart?
So this thing hit redemption on Friday. Um, but I have seen some decent interest in this name amongst, you know, social media and retail traders. So I'm wondering once we get the redemption number, you know, later tonight or tomorrow I have USC could definitely be on watch with some heavy redemption. Um, so one to keep an eye on.
The other three this week, Mitch, I think are the bigger names to watch. Um, so on the 22nd, we have L a T N merging with pro group. And this is a spec that has 13 and a half million shares out. And then we have AMHC voting on their merger with Jasper therapeutics, which is less than 10 million shares right now.
And then we have CTAC voting on their merger with core, which they actually postpone the merger from last week. If you guys remember, and they had 90% of shares redeemed last week of their 26 million shares out. So they're going to have another redemption number with the delayed vote this week. So CTAC, uh, is actually the one that, I mean, we could see this thing have a huge redemption number, right?
Because it already had 90%. Plus there's the chance to redeem more shares today. So the redemption deadline on all three of these is today. So lat, N AMHC and CTAC, anything stand out for you match on those three. Last I looked, they were all decently trading today. Um, you know, as I think people are starting to, uh, you know, kind of circle on the possibility of a post redemption play here.
All right, let me go ahead and come back here towards lat N as you can see, this is the only one that I saw was kind of already making a move up towards 10 75. So you could take a look here and look at the daily chart. It's starting to push past some daily highs. That's what you want to see, uh, that one's definitely gotten.
The lift looks like there was some volume that came in, uh, prob. Right there on the 15th car. So it looks like someone tried to get in here a little bit early. There was 2 million shares that were traded down there. Uh, so definitely somebody in here on this move V careful as it could be selling into the move there.
Uh, CTAC of course, all my watch would that redemption. Anytime you see that redemption, it's going to get on your radar. The big thing for me is trying to get closest towards the bottom. Right now we have a bottom close towards 9 51. I would love to get it towards nine eighties and nine seventies. And then look for that.
Pop above 10 with a risk down towards that low of 9 51. Uh, that's kind of the way I would attack CTAC. And it's definitely going to be on my radar. Who knows? Maybe if we see this one pop, who knows, maybe we bring them on Chris, what? Rural reach out to them. We've had them on before. Maybe we can bring them on.
What do you guys think? Do you guys like the CTAC, let us know in the chat and who knows? Maybe we reach out and bring them on as they go ahead. Ring the bell. Soon as we get through this merger. All right, there you go. 50 likes in a chat. Come on, guys. Let's get it on up there. Um, what a high redemption number, put the company at risk of being booted from the exchange, not enough money to meet minimum criteria.
Chris is the question here. So solar, a couple points to that question is, you know, a lot of times there is a pipe attached to the spec deal, right? So that pipe brings money into the company post-merger but the pipe shares don't unlock right away. So as the DCE backing process happens, right? So say with core, you know, 90% of the shares are reading.
So it's going to have a lower flow, less money, but once the pipe is on lock, then those shares become publicly traded. They get the money, plus they have more shares. So then they're going to meet all those requirements. So short-term, yes, there is some concern, but as long as there is a pipe, it shouldn't be a problem to meet the minimum.
Also remember some of these companies, we haven't seen it too much yet Mitch, but when they have this high redemption, that leads me to think what's going to happen down the road in a couple months, a share offer rig. Right? So there is always the potential as a publicly traded company to raise money via share offering.
So I don't see any risk of, you know, meeting the, the minimums there. All right. We'll keep it on radar. We'll watch to see what happens. And we got a big time question here in the chat. Uh, this is gonna take all Chris and I's expertise here. Should we get into the ocean or should we get into the pool today?
Carl asking he wants to jump into the ocean or the pool? What are you going to say, Chris? I'm going to say both here, both option for three. I'll say I'm a big fan of looking at the ocean and a big fan of swimming in a pool or something about swimming and something about swimming in a pool where you can see the bottom and you can see exactly what you're swimming with as opposed to the ocean and all the possible, uh, creatures and items.
I stick to pools, but I love an ocean view. So I'll say, look at the ocean, swim in the pool. Hey, I think he can, he can make that happen. We'll definitely see the kiddie pool. David says, Hey, can't go wrong. Dip your toes in there and throw the dog. And. Hey, lay back in the kiddie pool. Let's get it going. All right, guys.
Let's look at the chat. What tickers were mentioned there? I did see a couple of have mentioned. Of course, Carl, we are watching the RSI rumor. We'll see if that rumor actually fulfills or if anything happens there. Um, another one being mentioned here, Sue's mentioning FSR. We haven't seen that one come down.
I don't think it's found the bottom just yet, but let's take a look here at how we're trading on the day. We did come down towards, around. Let's see the low here, the low was 1214 on the 16th. We're holding pretty well today. So that's a good sign. The question is, do we come back down and test towards $10 or do we come back and start trending upwards?
We'll see what happens with Fisker. I think you have to watch into November, November. That's what I was just going to say with Fiskars November. I know you have the brains brains, but I'm listening. I got you in my ear. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the story for me, right. Is where to have shared land between now and November.
If you are looking to maybe go long Fisker long-term I think November is kind of the line in the sand, right? When they unveil this car. And with that being said, that's also the risks too. Right? What happens if they come out and change their timeline or say that the car's not going to meet those expectations, that would be a big risk, but assuming that they have this car and they show it off at that auto show in November, I think Fisker gets some more love, uh, you know, in a couple of months here.
Well, uh, like always, you can either shake it off, go for FSR now, or you can do the ocean and then, you know, shake it off and go and hop into the pool. Whichever one, I want to go swimming all this. Talk about oceans and pools and here I am working. Uh, so shout out to our chat that gets to swim today. Super spectrum.
It says no pain in the pool though. There's little hot P ticker hotel planner, hot P I don't know much. I don't know about that one. Hey, there's no pain in the pool, man. I already said it. Let's keep going. All right, let's go ahead. Let's get into the next one here. Um, I did see P S F E mentioned in the chat, so let's go ahead and go to it.
Pay safe. Dsfe let's take a look. This one has been trying to find a bottom. The question is where do we find it, Chris? Uh, it's now down towards $8 and I'm sure a lot of people that pay safe, never thought it would get underneath $10. So now we're testing the bottom of this scale. Well, we came through on the 19th and the 20th.
What are you thinking, Chris? Today? We got below that. Do we close below that? What are you thinking here? Yeah, I mean, we hit a 52 week low today on a day, you know, in the market is really red. That that's not great. Um, for me with Paysafe right. They're making those big international acquisitions, which I think are going to help with growth, but we're going to need to see in their next earnings report.
Right? What kind of growth we can expect from those acquisitions? I'll be looking to see if Paysafe bottoms out here, Mitch. Um, you know, cause it's definitely been one that I have had on watch for a long time. Never pulled the trigger. Um, but at $8, I don't know, uh, might have to circle this name on it.
That's without a doubt. When we see a stock get into a price point where it starts getting to the point where you're like, man, I mean, I just grabbed this company and sit back. I think I see it more valuable than where it is now. Um, and that's when you start getting into more the investor mindset where you're not even worried about where the story is today, you just know that it's going to get towards a better tomorrow.
Um, I think that's a long-term approach where you look at a company and you're just like, I just don't see this company not doing well in the long run. One of those to me was like outlet outlet. I do see it coming down, but at the end of the day, I would probably want to just hold it and just sit back, relax and wait towards the day where it actually makes the move because in the end I do think the company is going to be in a positive sense over years to come.
But that's of course a longterm approach. I think that's how you have to take a look also at Paysafe. I think it could come back. And the question is when. All right. Uh, what's uh, another one in the chat. Of course we got the lucid motors talk. Um, you know, you could talk a little bit more about this, Chris.
We kind of weren't. I, I think we were alive the day that we got the EPA rating, uh, the EPA rating of course, of five 20, um, on the miles. And that was course from the dream. What are you thinking, Chris? Do you think we come back towards this trend line? Do we think we finally got clear open space in lucid?
What are you thinking here? I mean, to me, I think that was a great story, right? But also now what's the next story for them that this was kind of one of those anticipated events, right? To get the mileage out there, but what's next now, between now and deliveries, you know, this is a company that has all eyes on it.
They have to perform, they have to meet those deadlines for, you know, production for deliveries. I do like the higher EPA, you know, mileage ratings, Meg. Let let's face it. Lucid ran by a former, you know, Tesla employee there. They're all, all in, right. And making this kind of a war between the two companies.
I think you're going to see that in the marketing plan, you saw lucid air commercials during Elan Musk appearance on Saturday night live, right? When Tesla, Tesla doesn't do commercials. So there was no Tesla commercial during that SNL appearance, but instead you had lucid showing off their vehicle. Um, but for me match, I mean, it's all about production and deliveries.
They have to meet those numbers, or we're going to see that sharp sell off again. So positive news, but still more to go with this name and I am long. So that's coming from someone who believes in the longterm story, but also a show me approach. All right. So what I pay attention to, of course, we've been talking about it, the monthly candles.
Can we get a green clothes on here? Can we get past this high? The high here is 25. 24. So that's kind of the level where I'd start seeing, Hey, can we run into that? And once we run into that, are we going to get above that? So 25, 24, we're talking somewhere around here. Uh, so let's see if we can get into that level, this line before we get to the trend line, close above that for the month.
And if we can do that, I would definitely be looking for a breakout through that trendline, uh, happy talking about if loose to strengths today. Shows a strength on a green day. Yes, I do think that that is true today. I mean, if you look on the hourly chart, we did get a nice open, you know, you get right here.
8:00 AM you get 9:00 AM and by 10:00 AM, it's already back towards the highs, which is a good sign. The question is, do we keep on this route? We've been going up about, um, gapping. Three days now, an inside candle would actually be good here or a close above. Yes. A Friday's high. Let's see if we can get above that and close above the high, or do we just kind of hang out in this area and do we test back down towards the 2117?
I'll keep a lookout on lucid. As I know, a lot of people are, are watching. I remember that lucid commercial. There you go. There's definitely going to be the battle there in lucid. I think a lot of people are going to be keeping this one on watch. And with that being said, there's one that is moving today.
I don't know what's going to happen to it because at least from my understanding, they did not go through with what was going to happen, which is slam right Chris. So they backed out of the deal. Backed out of the panini deal. You have a slam up. It's a slightly, I think I saw, I think I saw mud muds up today too.
Yeah. Muds is up slightly today to 9 92. I mean, remember muds and slam Mitch. Good call out. These were two that fell to like the 9 69 70 level, right after they called off those talks. I mean, your floor is still net asset value, right? If they don't reach a deal, you know, you're still going to get your net asset value back.
That's why it's important to pay attention to some of these specs, you know, trading at that 9 59 75 level. Cause there's more upside right. To get to the $10 level. So slam again. They've got Alex Rodriguez, they've got some other big names. They're not going to get panini, but maybe they go after a different, you know, sports company here.
So, uh, interesting. Uh, uh, Definitely without a doubt. You definitely have to keep your eyes on. Especially when, when I think they do these, I mean, a good thing is a sentiment very down, actually, you know, uh, this is the Alex Rodriguez one, right? Chris? Yep, exactly. So it does have to tie still towards some sports.
I mean, I, as I'm certain, you guys are, are, are definitely aware of, uh, I think a rod has some connections in sports, so I think he's definitely trying to leverage those connections. What the question is, what's next? I don't exactly know. I don't think anybody does, but keep it on radar. Who knows? Maybe you get your $10 and you just get your money back or you see this one, get a good name and start moving.
And that slam that's the last one I'll mention for today. But until then, Chris, I have something that you and everybody out there should keep your eyes out for. What is that? That is of course the EBV con powered by Ben Zynga. You guys don't miss out. This is going to be virtually on September 22nd. Yes. I said it this Wednesday.
Don't miss out guys. You can join virtually for free, um, us. We got about one day 13 hours remaining. Uh, I'm going to definitely keep watching this. We'll see what happens. We're going to have epic, epic lineup guys. We got, uh, FUV we're going to have, uh, general motors here at the event. You got works for it.
That just recently made a massive move on up. You guys don't miss out on this event and check it out, guys. All you gotta do is go to, uh, benzinga.com/events, and you will find this. I'll also throw it up in the chat here. I'll throw out the link and like always, yeah. Can you a chance to win one year of Benzinga pro all you got to do is just register for free.
You have a chance to win one. I mean, even if you don't show up, why not register to get that chance? Like always guys smash the, like, appreciate you Sue in the chat. Like always, definitely supporting us as we support you guys out there and we'll keep going. Chris, anything else you want to leave off? No, that's it, you know, tomorrow we're back to a normal show and then on Wednesday, a no show, as you said, mentioned electric vehicle conference for Benzinga.
I mean, we do conferences all year, right? We do some big cannabis ones, some FinTech ones, some small cap ones. And now we have a electric vehicle conference, right? We talk all the time about EBV companies. You're going to get to hear about some CEOs from these companies. You know, you named a couple there, Mitch, that I'm excited to hear from.
Um, also I think there's a couple that went public via spec that we'll be presenting. So guys don't miss out and again, your chance to win a free year of Benzinga pro. And if you don't win the year free. I, what was that code again that you gave for, for 35% off? I mean, normally we give 20% off to our viewers, but we have a special going on right now where you can get, you know, 35% off.
So, uh, you know, Benzinga pro don't miss out. Yeah, definitely. Guys, don't miss out on that. If you guys haven't yet found out, Chris just gave you the secret again, because I was just going to keep it to the people at the beginning of the show, but I got you. There's like 30 or 40 people that probably missed.
Happy fall is that discount code for 35% off your Benzinga pro subscription. Check it out, guys. You don't even need to use a credit card if this is your first time and you just want to get a free two weeks. I'd definitely recommend you checking it out. We'll see you guys next time up next, you got the power hour coming on.
Um, I'm going to go ahead and throw the link here in the chat so that you guys could get on over to the power. I do not miss it. This is where the hype meets the stocks. Yes. Hot stocks. Luke just might be there. And I mean, can you get any better than that? Uh, I did see story. Trading's going to be on there.
Hey, I'm not the only one that looks at story. Go check it out, guys. It's going to be on starting up. And I think literally just right now, guys, I threw the link in the chat there for you. If you didn't see it, just head on over to the cheque, click that link and get towards the power hour. We'll see you next time guys.
Like always smash the like, and the specs attack, baby.
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/spacs-attack/donations
