Japanese $BTC treasury company Metaplanet has disclosed a deal that will put a man Bloomberg describes as “Tokyo’s King of Death Spiral Financing” on both sides of the takeover.
Metaplanet wants to take control of Nasdaq gaming company Super League Enterprise in a $135 million deal.
Once the takeover is complete, Evo Fund, a Cayman islands fund launched by Princeton graduate and former Barings trader Michael Lerch, will pick up warrants for up to 10 million Super League shares.
It also financed Metaplanet’s $BTC buying in Tokyo, putting Lerch on both sides of the deal.
Moreover, Evo’s fund bought into Super League in September 2025 via a “$10 million strategic equity investment.”
That infusion helped Super League, which will change its name to Superplanet once the deal passes shareholder approval, regain compliance with Nasdaq’s equity rules.
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Evo Fund’s warrants dilute shareholders
Japanese business press has nicknamed Lerch the “mysterious alchemist” for how his fund’s warrants dilute companies.
Indeed, Evo is Japan’s largest buyer of floating-strike equity warrants. Bloomberg describes Lerch as synonymous with the death spiral financing trading strategy.
Specifically, his warrants often price using a moving, rather than static, strike price. As a result, rights built into clauses of Lerch’s contracts allow Evo to exercise convertability into stock at a lower price as shares fall.
Each exercise dilutes existing holders even more as the price declines.
For scale, consider that Evo’s 2025 warrant transactions in Japan exceeded ¥1 trillion, or roughly $6.3 billion. That captured more than 80% of the country’s floating-warrant market.
On the Super League side, Evo is now a named counterparty. Lerch’s fund will probably receive warrants under the filing that hands Metaplanet control.
More details on the Metaplanet deal
Super League’s disclosure lists two subscription agreements dated the same day.
Metaplanet’s Florida subsidiary, Metaplanet Holdings, subscribes for 44,859,400 common shares at $3 each. It also gets 100 shares of convertible preferred stock and four 10-year warrants covering up to 381 million shares.
Evo’s agreement grants two two-year warrants for up to 10 million shares, at fixed prices of $3 and $5.55. That is, and somewhat uncharacteristic for the “Tokyo’s King of Death Spiral Financing,” not a floating strike on this deal.
Sadakazu Osaki, a researcher at Japan’s Nomura Research Institute, warned that floating-strike warrants like Evo’s are “the last financing resort for underperforming companies.”
Metaplanet has used exactly that instrument, at enormous scale, to fund its $BTC purchases.
