Bannix Acquisition Corp. (BNIX) Sponsor Sells Interest to Instant Fame LLC
Bannix Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: BNIXU) management and sponsors have sold a total of 475,000 shares of common stock to Instant Fame LLC resulting in a change in leadership.
The sponsor, Suresh Yezhuvath, CFO Nicholas Hellyer, and directors of the company, Balaji Venugopal Bhat, Subbanarasimhaiah Arun, Vishant Vora, sold an aggregate of 385,000 shares of BNIX while Suresh Yezhuvath sold 90,000 private placements units in the private transaction.
As part of the securities purchase agreement, all parties agreed to a change in the Board of Directors. Subash Menon resigned as CEO and will be replaced with Douglas Davis as the new CEO. Nicholas Hellyer resigned as CFO, Secretary and Head of Strategy.
Further, Balaji Venugopal Bhat, Subbanarasimhaiah Arun and Vishant Vora all resigned as Directors of Bannix. Mr. Bhat, Mr. Arun and Mr. Vora served on the Audit Committee with Mr. Bhat serving as the committee chair. Mr. Bhat, Mr. Arun and Mr. Vora served on the Compensation Committee with Mr. Arun serving as the committee chair.
The Board was also increased from two to seven and Craig Marshak and Douglas Davis were appointed as Co-Chairmans of the Board of Directors, effective immediately. Further, Jamal Khurshid, Eric T. Shuss and Ned L. Siegel were appointed to the Board of Directors of the company.
Douglas Davis has previously served as the Managing Partner of CoBuilder, Inc., a consulting organization providing services for large and small corporate entities, and was the CEO of BitSpeed LLC, an extreme file transfer software solution. Mr. Davis also brings experience as the CEO of GBT Technologies, Inc.
Craig J. Marshak brings 25 years of experience in investment banking, private equity, and venture capital, with a significant Israel-based focus. Mr. Marshak is the Vice Chairman, and Co-Founder of Moringa Acquisition and has served as Managing Director at Israel Venture Partners. Mr. Marshak has played a principal role in various investments in Israeli companies, most notably the first institutional round for Shopping.com (NASDAQ: SHOP), which was sold to eBay, after its IPO, and organizing the first institutional round for CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR). He currently serves as a director of Nukkleus Inc, which has announced a pending merger with Brilliant Acquisition SPAC (NASDAQ:BRLI).
Jamal Khurshid served as an investment banker for over 20 years at Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and Royal Bank of Scotland before joining Cinnober Financial Technology, an independent exchange and clearing house technology provider. Since 2021, Mr. Khurshid joined Financial Strategies Acquisition Corp in June 2021 as CEO, subsequently resigning from the position in January 2022 remaining a director of the company. In August 2021, Mr. Khurshid was appointed COO at Nukkleus Inc, which has announced a pending merger with Brilliant Acquisition SPAC.
Eric T. Shuss has worked at mid-to-large companies as a Senior Industry Analyst, Managing Consultant, Director of Information Systems, Director of Operations, CEO, COO, Vice President, and President. These roles have been within high-profile businesses in AI and Robotics, I.T./ERP sales and consulting firms, high-tech manufacturers, Telecomm, retail operations, and distributors.
Ned L. Siegel brings experience as a senior U.S. government official and businessman. He was appointed by then President George W. Bush as the U.S. Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas and was also appointed to serve under Ambassador John R. Bolton at the United Nations in New York, serving as the Senior Advisor to the U.S. Mission and as the U.S. representative to the 61st Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Presently, he serves as President of The Siegel Group, a multi-disciplined international business management advisory firm specializing in real estate, energy, utilities, infrastructure, financial services, oil and gas and cyber and secure technology.
Bannix announced the pricing of its upsized $60 million IPO in September 2021 and has a completion deadline of December 14 on the horizon. Although the SPAC had 15 months on its timeline to complete a business combination, it still has an auto extension of 6 months. Bannix intends to combine with a B2B enterprise software target that provides services to the telecom, financial services, or retail sectors and utilizes advanced AI.