Eve UAM on track to become public company

Embraer is moving closer to divesting its air taxi business Eve UAM, saying it expects to close the sale of the business to shell company Zanite Acquisition on 9 May. The sale still requires approval from shareholders of publicly traded Zanite, which has scheduled a shareholder vote for 6 May, Eve and Zanite say on 14 April. The deal would make Florida-based Eve latest among several air taxi developers to become a publicly traded company through a reverse take-over method that gained favour on Wall Street in recent years. Zanite is a so-called special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), a type of entity formed for the purpose of acquiring attractive companies and taking them public. In December 2021, Embraer said it signed an agreement to sell Eve to Zanite in exchange for 220m Zanite shares, valued at $10 per share and equating to a total value of $2.2b. Upon the acquisition, Zanite will remain publicly traded and change its name to Eve Holdings, securities documents show. As part of the arrangement, Zanite has secured agreements to raise $305 million by selling shares to several private investors. That money, combined with Zanite’s existing funds, will leave Eve with $512m in cash once the deal closes. Embraer will own more than 80% of the public company, according to securities documents.<br/>