Coles and Ledecky's third SPAC Northern Star Investment III files for a $300 million IPO

Northern Star Investment III, the third blank check company formed by Joanna Coles and SPAC veteran Jonathan Ledecky, filed on Thursday with the SEC to raise up to $300 million in an initial public offering.

The New York, NY-based company plans to raise $300 million by offering 30 million units at $10. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one-sixth of a warrant, exercisable at $11.50. At the proposed deal size, Northern Star Investment III would command a market value of $375 million.

The company is led by CEO and Chairperson Joanna Coles, who is currently the Executive Producer of ABC Freeform's "The Bold Type" and previously served as Chief Content Officer of Hearst Magazine and Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, and COO Jonathan Ledecky, Chairman of Ironbound Partners and co-owner of the NHL's New York Islanders. The company plans to target the direct-to-consumer and digitally-disruptive e-commerce spaces, focusing on businesses that have powerful relationships with their consumers, value their input, and communicate with them effectively. It also plans to look for businesses which create, produce, own, distribute and/or market content, products and services or facilitate the sharing economy.

Management's other SPACs include Northern Star Investment IV (NSTD.U), which filed concurrently with Northern Star Investment III; Northern Star Investment II (NSTB.U; +10% from $10 offer price), which went public last month; and Northern Star Acquisition (STIC; +42%), which went public in November 2020 and has a pending merger agreement with BARK, the company behind dog-focused subscription services BarkBox and Super Chewer.

Northern Star Investment III was founded in 2020 and plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol NSTC.U. The company filed confidentially on December 23, 2020. Citi is the sole bookrunner on the deal.