The International Fight League, the new mixed martial arts league co-founded by Wizard CEO Gareb Shamus (see 'Gareb Shamus Founds Mixed Martial Arts League'), has completed a private placement for around $24 million. After expenses, the placement will net the company roughly $22 million.
The announcement trashed the stock price at first, which had to absorb considerable dilution. It dropped around 1/3 at the open last Friday, when the deal was announced, but has since recovered about half of the initial decline.
The IFL has been busy recently. On November, 29th, it completed a reverse merger into the former Paligent, which was an empty publicly traded shell. As a result of that transaction, the IFL acquired a way to reach public equity markets and establish a value for the company. That reverse merger gave 95% of the stock in Paligent, renamed International Fight League, Inc., to shareholders of the IFL.
On December 10th, the league was featured prominently in a 60 Minutes segment on the growth of mixed martial arts.
The final event in its inaugural season will be held December 29th. Fox Sports Net, which showed three hours of programming in the spring and ten hours in the fall, will televise the event.
A new 11-date, 12 team season will kick off in
William Morris represents the IFL for TV and venue opporutnites. 306ep, where former Marvel CEO Bill Jemas is CEO, represents IFL for licensing.
