More on SPACs
By David Feldman at 26 January, 2009, 9:23 am
My last post declaring SPACs “dormant” led to an unusual amount of emails expressing a variety of opinions as to the current state of the SPAC market.
Let’s start with DealFlow Media’s latest “SPAC Wire.” Without naming companies, just looking at January 13-January 23, headlines end with the following:
“Management Makes Second Loan..”
“…Gets $500K Loan..”
“…Cancel Merger” (there are two of these)
“…Postpones Vote”
“…To Liquidate, Remain a Shell”
“…Pushes Back Vote, Alters Terms”
“…To Ask for More Time”
But then there is this little nugget: “…Inks $92.5 Million Deal…”
I will let you in on a little secret surrounding the new edition of my book. When we first discussed it last Spring, I was excited about upgrading the SPAC portion of the book, which was a single chapter which I wrote. I decided in the new edition to expand the coverage and include a strong industry player to actually write the chapter (or maybe even two).
Bottom line: those who would have loved to write it even six months ago are now cringing at the thought. Add to that some of the thoughts people have relayed in their various emails to me in response to the last post: SPACs are dead, they say, and there is no sign of them ever coming back. Others say if they do it will be a long time from now, and probably not with the super-large $100MM plus types.
But no one is ready to say this is it, forever, they will never come back. So I think while there is current near-carnage in this space per the above, I remain hopeful that there will be a time and place in the not too distant future for this asset clase to resurface stronger and maybe a bit wiser.
No comments yet.