Miami NIL Booster Misses Yet Another Deadline En Route to Potential Delisting by Nasdaq
Picture by Getty Images.
LifeWallet — the company that is most tied to name, image and likeness — might need a lifeline itself after missing yet another important deadline.
On Tuesday, the company failed to provide the Nasdaq with an organizational plan to avoid its delisting from the stock exchange.
After it didn't file its fourth quarter and fiscal 2022 earnings, LifeWallet was given two months — a deadline of June 20 — to submit that plan. The company said at the time that it expected to be able to meet the deadline.
Attempts to reach LifeWallet through its listed communication contacts were unsuccessful.
The missed deadline comes amid a series of foibles from the company created by John Ruiz, who has spent millions to support college athletes at the University of Miami.
Ruiz helped construct Miami's Final Four men’s basketball team, giving $800,000 to Nijel Pack to transfer from Kansas State and $100,000 to Isaiah Wong to incentivize him to stay put. He has deals with Hanna and Haley Cavinder, twin influencers who transferred to Miami from Fresno State before leaving collegiate athletics earlier this year.
LifeWallet received a delisting notice in April after trading below $1 for 30 consecutive days. That's after losing roughly 93% of its share value since its IPO in 2022.
At its height, Ruiz's company was worth up to $33 billion on paper, the second-largest SPAC of all-time.
But much of the valuation was based on what Ruiz and the company told investors were proprietary algorithms that allowed them to find the right cases, litigate them and make money. Ruiz claimed the company could recover up to $89 billion by doing this.
Ruiz provided guidance that 2022 revenue would approach $1 billion. When the company first reported quarterly earnings, nine months of revenue yielded just $3.9 million after projecting income of $992 million. And even those paltry numbers are unreliable, the company said in April.
In fact, the company said in that April release that any financial information released by LifeWallet in 2022 should be considered unreliable.
The stock — listed as LIFW on the Nasdaq — closed trading on Tuesday at $0.46, down 68% year-to-date and down 95% all-time.
Ruiz said in a tweet after this story was posted that the plan was filed today. On Thursday, the company told the SEC that a special committee recommended that they hired an internal auditor for their unreliable 2022 financials. Despite this, no filing has been made and the company said a review would be released "as soon as practicable."
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