Addleshaw Goddard's Hong Kong Corporate Finance Team has advised CM Seven Star Acquisition Corporation ("CM7Star") on its acquisition of Kaixin Auto Group ("Kaixin"), in a deal worth up to approximately US$454 million, which represents AG Hong Kong's largest corporate finance transaction to date.

CM7Star is a NASDAQ-listed blank check company (known as a SPAC) formed for the purpose of entering into a business combination with one or more businesses. Kaixin is a leading premium used car dealership network in China owned by NYSE-listed Renren Inc., whose majority shareholder is SoftBank, the Japanese conglomerate who also owns large stakes in Alibaba, Uber and WeWork amongst others.

Upon closing of the transaction, Renren will sell 100% of Kaixin’s equity holdings to CM7Star in exchange for an initial consideration of approximately 28.3 million CM7Star shares and up to 19.5 million CM7Star shares issuable upon the achievement of certain financial results and/or stock prices.  

This deal, which is expected to complete in early 2019, was led by Partner Andrew Yang, Sam Yazdani and Luana Tung.