France's Accor plans to sponsor a SPAC to raise $365 million

PARIS (Reuters) -Europe's biggest hotel group Accor said on Thursday it planned to sponsor a blank-check firm to target acquisitions in the leisure, lifestyle and food sectors.

The company said in a statement it expected the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to raise about 300 million euros ($365.37 million) with a listing on Euronext Paris, adding that its own investment in the SPAC would not be material.

A SPAC is a shell company that raises money in an initial public offering (IPO) to merge with a privately held firm, that then becomes publicly traded as a result.

Accor said that SPAC acquisition would benefit from the company's network, scale and global presence.

($1 = 0.8211 euros)

(Reporting by Matthieu Protard and Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)