Speaking at a legal conference Wednesday, Securities and Exchange Commission official John Coates said there are “some significant and yet undiscovered issues” with SPACs…. Those issues are “not something that’s going to stop them by any means, but they are relatively as yet incompletely worked through mechanisms, despite the fact they have been around for a while,” said Mr. Coates, who is acting director of the SEC’s Corporation Finance division…. “Their current surge is bringing the level of attention by many more participants in the market than previously had been involved, and that is turning up some questions that have to be thought through more carefully,” said Mr. Coates, who spoke at a legal conference sponsored by the Practising Law Institute.

Coates didn’t elaborate on those issues or questions or what prompted them, but we can’t help thinking that a trading card company mumbling something or other about NFTs taking advantage of the SPAC route at the moment at which both the SPAC craze and bored hunger for spending your money on crap abate as the pandemic subsides and people are mercifully able to do something else with their lives might have something to do with it.

Topps, which is best known for its baseball cards and Bazooka candy line, has agreed to go public through a merger with Mudrick Capital Acquisition Corporation II, a special purpose acquisition company, that values Topps at $1.3 billion…. While Topps is best known for its sports trading cards, it has branched out into interactive mobile apps to connect collectors and recently expanded into nonfungible tokens…./“This is the icing on the cake, going digital completely, with the analog still in place,” [Topps Chairman Michael] Eisner said.

A more perfect nutshelling of this deal than that perfectly meaningless and self-contradictory statement we certainly can’t imagine. It must be nearly impossible for the folks at Patreon to hold themselves from taking advantage of these rubes while they still can.

And speaking of getting in a little late, Jim Cramer thinks it’s a great idea for at least two companies.

“If you care about the future of either company or the long-term trajectory of their stocks, issuing shares up here is the right move,” Cramer said. “But the ‘hold the line’ crowd they hate these offerings … and they despise anyone who defends them….”

“AMC and GameStop need money,” Cramer said. “Raising capital is good for both companies and over the long haul, what’s good for the company should be good for the stock.”

For now, let’s give the last word to Carson Block, who ties these storylines together quite nicely.

"You've got the companies that are really deserving of being shorted, and then you've got the companies that you actually can short from a technical perspective. A lot of the intersection right now is SPACs."

Topps to go public through SPAC deal as baseball card company ventures into NFTs [CNBC]
SEC Official Warns on Growth of Blank-Check Firms [WSJ]
Patreon’s Valuation Triples to $4 Billion as Platform Draws Creators, Fans [WSJ]
Cramer says AMC, GameStop plans to sell more shares will be good in the long term [CNBC]
Short-seller Carson Block discussed GameStop, SPACs, and Archegos in a recent interview. Here are the 10 best quotes. [BI]

For more of the latest in litigation, regulation, deals and financial services trends, sign up for Finance Docket, a partnership between Breaking Media publications Above the Law and Dealbreaker.

“If only there was just one more streaming service I could watch,” said no one. Ever.

Yet here we are: Yesterday former executives of Disney and Discovery announced a new streaming platform called “Struum,” which will make its debut this spring.

Instead of offering its own original content, Struum will give viewers à la carte access to hundreds of niche streaming services without forcing them to subscribe to each individually.

Marching To The Beat Of Your Own Struum
Discovery+ notwithstanding, the streaming landscape is dominated by elephants. A whopping 95% of U.S. households subscribe to one of Netflix, Disney’s Hulu or Amazon’s Prime Video. A fourth tech giant, Apple, entered the fray in late 2019.

These well-capitalized firms have made it nearly impossible for new entrants to break in (just ask Quibi, which failed in spectacular fashion after raising nearly $2 billion in venture capital).

Struum Playbook: Inspired by ClassPass, which lets people pick and choose classes at gyms they’re not members of, Struum will do the same for streaming:

• Struum has struck deals with nearly three dozen unnamed, niche streaming services representing 20,000 TV shows and movies.
• For $9.99 a month, users will get 100 “credits” that allow them to pick and choose what shows they want to watch from different streaming services.

Use Case: If (for some odd reason) you're in the mood for an art-house horror flick, Struum would give piecemeal access to a streaming service like Screambox (which, you may not want to pay for every month).

The Takeaway: The venture is being backed by Tornante, the investment firm of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, who told the WSJ Struum is a “no brainer.” Famous last words in the streaming arena.