Selina Hospitality PLC

Selina entered the public markets through a merger with BOA Acquisition Corp, a special-purpose acquisition company ⁴ that held a trust of roughly $230 million ¹. The deal was announced on December 2, 2021, at a pro-forma equity value of about $1.2 billion, and the financing structure layered a roughly $55 million PIPE — including a $15 million sponsor backstop and investors South Light Capital, MORE Investment House, and Sir Ronald Cohen — over $147.5 million of 6% senior unsecured convertible notes due 2026 with a conversion price near $11.50 ¹. The minimum cash condition was reduced from $70 million to $55 million in July 2022 ¹. A special-meeting vote on approximately October 21, 2022 passed 24,084,072 to 1,697,930, and the merger closed on October 27, 2022, with shares trading as SLNA and warrants as SLNAW ¹. The combined company, Selina Hospitality PLC ⁵, was a UK public limited company and foreign private issuer filing on Forms 20-F and 6-K ¹.

Selina received only a fraction of the SPAC trust at closing because of heavy shareholder redemptions ². Its FY2022 20-F, audited by Baker Tilly US, carried a substantial-doubt going-concern paragraph, with current assets of $79.7 million against current liabilities of $188.9 million and financial debt of $182.8 million ². In January 2024 the company restructured its note program: $132.8 million of the 2026 notes were exchanged for warrants and new 6% senior secured notes due 2029, and $14.7 million of founder-affiliated Kibbutz notes were swapped for new debt and equity ². Osprey Investments and Osprey purchased $28.0 million of ordinary shares at $0.20 per share — against the $10 SPAC unit price — leaving Osprey International Ltd, a Cyprus entity, holding 155,777,897 shares, or 41.3% of 378,418,620 shares outstanding ². A January 25, 2024 Investor Rights Agreement gave Osprey the right to designate a majority of the board, the chair, and majorities of key committees ².

Selina subsequently defaulted on a $50 million IDB Invest loan and missed an interest payment of roughly $455,000 due July 15, 2024 ². The board declared that there were "no reasonable prospects" of avoiding insolvency, and FTI Consulting was appointed joint administrators under Paragraph 22 of Schedule B1 to the UK Insolvency Act 1986 on July 22, 2024, followed by a Form 25 delisting and Nasdaq suspension around July 29, 2024 ². On August 22, 2024, Collective Hospitality, a Singapore-based operator, acquired approximately 100 hotels in 22 countries along with the Remote Year business out of administration for an undisclosed price ².

According to analysis in the softbank-caper investigation, Selina is a structural parallel to WeWork — the company associated with Rajeev Misra's SoftBank Vision Fund — sharing a founder-narrative, asset-light real-estate proposition with lifestyle branding, blitzscaled site growth, persistent losses, and a public-market debut at a high headline valuation followed by near-total equity destruction ³. According to that analysis, the point of divergence is the financier — WeWork was backed by SoftBank Group and its Vision Fund, while Selina took no SoftBank or Vision Fund capital at any stage ³. Cross-reference of the financing records in the investigation treats this contrast as isolating the founder and SPAC-narrative mechanics from SoftBank's specific funding role ³.

According to the investigation's reading, the loss distribution at Selina fell hardest on SPAC retail holders, whose equity became worthless after delisting, and on 2026 noteholders pushed into a roughly 60% haircut exchange, while the rescue financier Osprey converted distress into a 41.3% controlling stake at $0.20 per share and founder-affiliated debt was handled inside the restructuring rather than the open market ³. Examination of the public record in the investigation found no evidence that Adam Neumann cashed out of Selina before its collapse, and analysis indicates his reported stake of approximately 8.4% lost its value alongside other equity holders, so the founder-enrichment parallel to WeWork is treated as partial rather than established ³.