There is an older and less flattering term for this. It's called a reverse merger. Typically, you start with a company that sold aluminum siding in the seventie

There is an older and less flattering term for this. It's called a reverse merger. Typically, you start with a company that sold aluminum siding in the seventies and has no assets but happens to still be on a public Exchange. They call this the vehicle. The rest works just like the article says, you merge the shell company in with the company that actually has value and avoid the IPO process. As the article honestly points out, the whole point of this is to avoid the scrutiny that you typically get from an investment Bank. It also skirts the spirit of a number of regulations put in place to keep people from losing their retirement nest egg on snake oil.