Tastemaker intends to merger with a business in the restaurant, hospitality or related technology and services sectors. However, we may decide to enter into our initial business combination with a merger partner that does not meet the target sectors and we may pursue a company with operations or opportunities outside of the United States.
Our team has decades of experience operating, growing, selling and investing in leading restaurant and related businesses. We are focused on merging with a growth-oriented business where our unique operating and investing experience will enable us to implement value creation initiatives and support the company through its next phase of growth in the public marketplace. We have identified the following general criteria that we believe are important in evaluating prospective merger partners. These criteria and attributes are not intended to be exhaustive.

Ideal Attributes of a Tastemaker Merger Partner
- Size: $500 million – $1 billion +
- Public equity investors prefer larger, more liquid companies
- SPAC founder shares are less dilutive on a percentage basis when spread across a larger business
- Business Characteristics
- Market leadership position
- Differentiated product
- Strong fundamentals and unit economics
- Resiliency through economic cycles
- Growth
- Companies with strong growth prospects
- We bring operational expertise and resources to create value creation initiatives and accelerate growth
- Valuation
- Equivalent to a public markets exit, but with greater speed, price certainty and less distraction than a traditional IPO
- Same valuation validation as an IPO, but quicker and more accurate feedback
- Appropriate leverage
- We would consider conservative leverage levels that would not impede growth objectives and in line with public company peers
- Our operationally oriented team is focused on creating initiatives to strategically grow the business and drive considerable value in the public markets and not on financial engineering
- Strong Management Team
- Led by a visionary team that is already in place
- We can supplement existing team with our extensive network of executives
- Sellers Rolling Equity
- Minimizes need for debt and PIPE equity
- Positive signal to market when existing holders, who know the company best, have “skin in the game”
- Flexible structure to accommodate sellers’ desire to maintain minority or majority stakes