Airspan Networks announced a merger agreement with and into New Beginnings Acquisition Corp. (NBA), a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The combination is expected to have an enterprise value of nearly $822 million. Upon closing of the business combination, expected in the third quarter of 2021, NBA will be renamed “Airspan Networks Holdings Inc.,” a publicly listed company, which is expected to be listed on the NYSE American with the ticker symbol “MIMO.”
“These seismic 5G industry trends play right into Airspan’s strengths,” said Eric Stonestrom, President and CEO of Airspan. “This transaction is expected to help fund our growth plans and accelerate our vision of providing our customers with leading edge 5G networks. We are at the precipice of a significant capital-intensive upgrade as 5G deployments drive the future growth of existing mobile carriers, new market entrants, and private and enterprise buildouts that we believe will transform numerous industries.”
“We are delighted to partner with Airspan, a first mover in this exciting and rapidly expanding new 5G market,” said Michael Liebowitz, CEO and Director of New Beginnings Acquisition Corp. “As 5G networks are rolled out, Airspan is leading the way with its breakthrough Open RAN technology with significant potential for growth serving incumbent and emerging carriers, and also addressing new “private 5G” segments including in building 5G, Distributed Antenna System (DAS) building replacements, connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), automated port operations, air-to-ground in-flight connectivity, Smart Industry 4.0 factories and optimized Smart Grid driven utilities. This transaction will bring the vision of Eric and the Airspan team to fruition.”
