
The SPACtacular Rise of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company: A Retail Investor’s Worst Nightmare
The special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is a company with no commercial or operating history that has listed on a stock exchange with the sole objective of raising financing to identify and acquire another company. SPACs developed after the SEC curtailed penny-stock blank-check companies and have recently achieved cult-like status. In 2020, SPACs accounted for most of the money raised through IPOs on U.S. exchanges. SPACs are also big business in the M&A world, completing nearly $80 billion worth of acquisitions in 2020 alone, and it is not surprising that non-U.S. exchanges are falling over themselves to take a … Read more