Merged into BurgerFi, ticker now BFI
OPES

Completed

BurgerFi

BFI
First $10.09
Merger $10.57
5%
Merger +6mo $12.55
24%
Merger +1yr $8.36
17%
Recent $0.51
95%

Opes Acquisition Corp.

Raised
$100M
CIK
1723580
SPAC Ticker
OPES
Merger
BurgerFi
Merged Ticker
BFI
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

José Antonio Cañedo White has served as our Chief Executive Officer since July 2017. Mr. Cañedo White has served as a Managing Partner of Axis since 1990, overseeing the firm’s principal investment and trading activities. Under Mr. Cañedo White’s leadership, Axis served as in-house merchant bank for Grupo Televisa, S.A., or Grupo Televisa, the largest Spanish-speaking media company in the world and Mexico’s largest television company, from 1990 to 1997, providing M&A and corporate finance advisory services. During his involvement with Televisa, Mr. Cañedo White served as Chairman of the Board of Grupo Televicentro, S.A. de C.V., or Grupo Televicentro, Grupo Televisa’s controlling holding company, from 1993 to 1997, and Grupo Video Visa, S.A. de C.V., or Grupo Video Visa, the largest video distributor in Mexico at the time, from 1993 to 1994. Previously, Mr. Cañedo White served as Head of Investment Banking for Nacional Financiera, or Nafinsa, the Mexican government’s premier development bank, from 1988 to 1990. From 1989 to 1990, he was a member of the governing board of the Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores o CNBV, Mexico’s national securities and banking commission, Mexico’s regularly equivalent of the SEC. Mr. Cañedo White is Chairman of the Board of Oro Negro. Mr. Cañedo White also held board positions in several Mexican companies including Celanese Mexicana, S.A., an industrial chemical company, Cementos Guadalajara, S.A. de C.V., a major cement manufacturer, and Coronado, S.A. de C.V., a consumer products company for which he served as Chairman of the Board until the sale of the company to Grupo Bimbo. Mr. Cañedo White graduated with a degree in Business Administration from Universidad Anahuac. Mr. Cañedo White is the cousin of Mr. Gil White. We believe Mr. Cañedo White is well-qualified to serve as a member of the board due to his business experience and contacts.

Gonzalo Gil White has served as our Chairman of the Board since July 2017. Mr. Gil White has served as a Managing Partner and CEO of Axis since 2012. Mr. Gil White has been the CEO and a Director of Oro Negro since its inception in 2012 and has been responsible for transforming it from a greenfield venture into a leading operating offshore drilling company with one of the highest operating and safety track records in the industry worldwide. Mr. Gil White has also served as President of the Executive Committee and Founding Partner of Navix de Mexico, a Mexican finance company, since 2007. Prior to founding Oro Negro, Mr. Gil White served as the CEO of Navix from 2007 to 2012. During his tenure, Mr. Gil White positioned Navix as a leading non-regulated financial intermediary; launched multiple credit-driven strategies; pioneered private securitization transactions of consumer loans; issued the first credit-focused development capital certificates (CKD) in the Mexican stock exchange and established a Partnership Product Program with a leading global financial institution to underwrite structured credit in multiple asset classes. Prior to launching Navix, Mr. Gil White established several funding vehicles, such as Navitas Investments and Arto Holdings, which have financed more than $1.5 billion in projects in the oil and gas industry since 2005. Previously, Mr. Gil White worked at Equity Group Investments, the investment arm of Sam Zell, where he was Vice-President for Latin America and oversaw corporate and real estate investments throughout the region. Mr. Gil White received a Masters in Business Administration degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a law degree from Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM). Mr. Gil White is the cousin of Mr. Cañedo White. We believe Mr. Gil White is well-qualified to serve as a member of the board due to his business experience and contacts.

Miguel Angel Villegas Vargas has served as our Chief Financial Officer since December 2017. Since 2014, Mr. Villegas has served as Chief Financial Officer and member of the board at Oro Negro, a Mexican oilfield services company, and served as its Vice President of Investments from 2013 to 2014. He also serves as a member of the board of Navigatis Radiance Pte Ltd, a company that owns, operates and manages offshore support vessels and Navix de Mexico, a private specialty finance company, where he also was a Senior Originator Associate from 2009 to 2011. Navigatis and Navix are companies affiliated to our sponsor, Axis Management S.A. de C.V. Prior to that, Mr. Villegas worked for Citigroup as Relationship Manager and Credit Analyst from 2005 to 2009. Mr. Villegas received a Bachelor of Arts in Financial Management, summa cum laude, from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and an M.B.A. from Wharton Business School.

Adolfo Rios Olivier has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2017. Since December 2015, Mr. Rios has served as the founding and managing partner of BI Administradora, S.C. (“BPBI”), a multi-family private investment group focused on identifying, structuring and executing private investments through vehicles designed for ultra-high net worth individuals, family offices and institutional investors. From March 2009 to November 2015, Mr. Rios was the founding and managing partner of Alfaro, Davila Y Rios, S.C., a private investment banking firm that was Lazard’s exclusive strategic partner to conduct transactions in Mexico at the time. From February 2008 to February 2009, Mr. Rios was a managing partner and chief financial officer of Axis in Mexico and Chief Financial Officer for Navix. Prior to this, Mr. Rios served as a managing director of Rothschild in Mexico and Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup Global Markets in New York. Mr. Rios received a Bachelor of Economics, with honors, at the Universidad de las Americas – Puebla in Puebla, Mexico and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business. We believe Mr. Rios is well-qualified to serve as a member of the board due to his business experience and contacts.

Martha (Stormy) L. Byorum has served as a member of our board of directors since January 2018. Ms. Byorum is founder and chief executive officer of Cori Investment Advisors, LLC (Cori Capital), a financial services entity that was most recently (January 2005 through August 2013) a division of Stephens Inc., a private investment banking firm founded in 1933. Ms. Byorum was also an executive vice president of Stephens Inc. from January 2005 until August 2013. She has also been a managing director at Young America Capital LLC, since October 2014. From March 2003 to December 2004, Ms. Byorum served as chief executive officer of Cori Investment Advisors, LLC, which was spun off in 2003 from Violy, Byorum & Partners Holdings, LLC (“VB&P”), a leading independent strategic advisory and investment banking firm specializing in Latin America. Ms. Byorum co-founded VB&P in 1996 and served as a Partner until February 2003. Prior to co-founding VB&P in 1996, Ms. Byorum had a 24-year career at Citibank, where, among other things, she served as chief of staff and chief financial officer for Citibank’s Latin American Banking Group from 1986 to 1990, overseeing $15 billion of loans and coordinating activities in 22 countries. She was later appointed the head of Citibank’s U.S. Corporate Banking Business and a member of the bank’s Operating Committee and a Customer Group Executive with global responsibilities. Ms. Byorum is a Life Trustee of Amherst College. She has also served as a director of Tecnoglass Inc. (formerly Andina Acquisition Corp., or “Andina”) since 2011, where she currently serves as chair of the audit committee, as a director of Northwest Natural Gas Company since 2004, where she currently serves as chair of the finance committee and as a member of the audit and governances committees, and as a director of JELD-WEN Holding, Inc. since 2014, where she currently is a member of the audit and governance and nominating committees. Ms. Byorum received a B.B.A. from Southern Methodist University and an M.B.A. from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. We believe Ms. Byorum is well-qualified to serve as a member of the board of directors due to her operational experience with Cori Capital Advisors, VB&P and Citibank and her financial background, which includes having served on the audit committees of four publicly-traded companies, as well as her experience with Andina.

Jack Landsmanas Stern has served as a member of our board of directors since July 2017. Mr. Landsmanas is the CEO of Corporativo Kosmos, a group of Mexican companies dedicated mainly to food services and offering to a wide range of food solutions to institutions and corporations, schools and hotels, cruises and boats, offshore and onshore oil platforms, etc. Since joining Corporativo Kosmos in 2011, Mr. Landsmanas has led the expansion of the company to currently provide meals on a daily basis to more than 3 million people throughout Mexico. Prior to joining Corporativo Kosmos, from 2003 to 2011, Mr. Landsmanas served as CEO at Brenland Almacenaje y Logistica, a company formerly owned by the Mexican government that offered all services related to storage, cold storage and distribution centers with more than 5.7 million square foot in properties for leasing in seven northern states of Mexico. From 2001 to 2003, Mr. Landsmanas worked in the Investment Banking and Equity Derivatives group at UBS Warburg in Stamford, CT advising, structuring and executing risk capital strategies for Latin American customers. Mr. Landsmanas professional experience also includes working as a research assistant to the Economic Affair Committee counseling the Private office of the President of Mexico and as senior analyst at Protego Asesores Financieros, a boutique investment bank headed by former Mexican Secretary of Treasury. Mr. Landsmanas received a Degree in Economy from the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM), a Master of Science in Financial Mathematics from the University of Chicago and a Master of Arts in Statistics from Columbia University. We believe Mr. Landsmanas is well-qualified to serve as a member of the board due to his business experience and contacts.