Trump's Social Media Venture Boosted By China-Based Investor

A China-based financier, once reprimanded by US regulators and barred from taking his company public, played a bigger role in the shell company that agreed to merge with former President Donald Trump’s new social media venture, Echo Wang and Michael Berens reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: ARC is listed as “financial advisor” to Digital World Acquisition Corp, the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that signed a deal in October to merge with Trump’s new media platform.

Little has been disclosed about the involvement of the financier, Abraham Cinta, and the Shanghai-based investment bank he leads, ARC Group Ltd, in the shell company’s regulatory filings. ARC is listed as “financial advisor” to Digital World Acquisition Corp, the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that signed a deal in October to merge with Trump’s new media platform.

No details are provided in the filings other than that ARC could help the SPAC with contacts in government and the business world, as well as access to a “quality deal pipeline.”

Now, new information - text messages, a financial document outlining proposed terms of the shell company, an agreement between ARC and one of Digital World’s creators, and interviews with five sources familiar with the situation - shows that Cinta and ARC did not just advise Digital World.

They also offered money to create Digital World and recruited an executive to help put the company together.

ARC offered to provide at least $2 million to three businessmen to form Digital World, the SPAC that went on to merge with Trump Media and Technology Group, and Cinta had a say in how the SPAC’s management team would be compensated, according to the financial document and text messages between Cinta and others involved.

A person familiar with the matter said ARC eventually made an investment in the SPAC that became Digital World. Reuters could not confirm whether the investment was for $2 million, as ARC originally discussed. The initial investors in the management entity, or sponsor, of Digital World put in a total of $11.8 million, disclosures show.

The Washington Post and Bloomberg News previously reported that ARC has a stake in the sponsor of Digital World. The fact that ARC offered money to get the SPAC off the ground is reported here for the first time.

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