Who is Wuhan-Linked Patrick Orlando, the Man Taking Donald Trump’s Media Company Public?

By Jarrett Banks and John Jannarone

Former President Donald Trump grabbed the attention of Wall Street Thursday after a brief announcement that his new media venture is going public, sending billions of dollars in and out of a SPAC called Digital World Acquisition Corp. (ticker: DWAC), which rose 356% on a volume of nearly half a billion shares – clearly a record for DWAC which had been sleepy until announcing the merger.

But while most attention has been on Mr. Trump and Trump Media and Technology Group, of which he is Chairman, little is known about the SPAC that has teamed up with him or the man at its helm.

Meet Patrick Orlando, the CEO of Digital World (which raised $300 million earlier this year and has a little less on hand) as well as two other SPACs. According to filings searched using Sentieo, an AI-enabled research platform, Mr. Orlando is the CEO of Benessere Capital Acquisition Corp. (ticker: BENE), which is based in Miami as well as CEO of of Benessere Capital, LLC, an investment consulting and investment banking firm he founded in Miami in October 2012. Bloomberg recently reported Benessere is near a deal with Florida-based hydrogen fuel firm ECombustible, but it hasn’t been formally announced.

Perhaps more interesting is Mr. Orlando’s role as CEO of Yunhong International (ticker: ZGYH), another SPAC where he is CEO. Yunhong International is located in an office building in Wuhan, China, according to SEC filings. That same address is shared by Yunhong Group, which sells an array of supplements such as “Natural Brain Booster Capsule” and “Bitter Gourd Peptides”.

Of course, it is common for SPAC specialists to oversee several vehicles at one time, though some argue it creates a conflict if they are hunting the same targets. But with Mr. Orlando’s background in such an unusual locale as Wuhan, it remains a mystery how me matched up with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Orlando also earned two degrees from MIT and previously was Vice President of Sucro Can International LLC, a sugar processing company, where he focused on compliance, finance, and processing technology, according to SEC filings.