Celebrity influencers like Serena Williams, Ciara and Chamath Palihapitiya have jumped on the blank-check-company boom. One of the biggest stars in this white-hot corner of Wall Street is a 79-year-old financier who doesn’t tweet or court the Reddit daytrading crowd.
What Betsy Cohen does do is deals—lots of them.
This month, Ms. Cohen brought her ninth blank-check company to market, making her one of the biggest players in special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Her latest undertaking involves a merger with Robinhood Markets Inc. competitor eToro that values the investment platform at more than $10 billion.
In total, Ms. Cohen’s SPACs have raised more than $3 billion and are taking public such companies as payment platform Payoneer Inc. and financial advisory firm Perella Weinberg Partners. Since the pandemic, Ms. Cohen, an art and architecture aficionado, does her deals from her home near Sarasota, Fla.
It is not just the number of deals that sets Ms. Cohen apart in a space now swarming with big-name financiers, athletes and pop stars.
