SPACs have ‘Come into Vogue’

| Dec 13, 2021 | Michael Benigno

The U.S. IPO market hit impressive highs this year, with more than 950 issuers raising more than $300 billion in proceeds. Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)—newly formed public companies designed to merge with private operating companies—are responsible for more than half of that growth. Increasingly popular among large investment firms, celebrities, and sports stars, SPACs raised more than $160 billion in proceeds in the first quarter of 2021 alone.

Experts discussed what makes SPACs attractive investment opportunities, new trends and potential pitfalls, regulatory and legal issues, and the outlook for SPACs in 2022 in a webinar in partnership with the Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis and the Museum of American Finance, sponsored by Citadel Securities and Vinson & Elkins.

Moderated by Bloomberg TV correspondent Sonali Basak, panelists included CIOs and managing partners from Nasdaq and leading investment firms, who considered whether SPACs are the new IPO.

Kicking off the session, Michael Harris, head of capital markets and business development at Citadel Securities, said, “The SPAC IPO market has meaningfully changed over the last year, but still there are a lot of questions that remain in terms of the future direction of the market.”