Tech Crunch Looks Inside Silicon Valley’s SPAC Psychology

As the mania subsided, retail investors fled and SPACs fell back to their IPO price of $10 — or slightly below that — per share, prompting more hedge fund arb players to move into the market. 

ScanTech and Mars Acquisition announced a merger agreement in September at a pro forma enterprise value of $149.5 million.

The blank-check companies that captivated Wall Street for a year are playing it safe with their accounting as the market slowly recovers from a financial reporting crackdown that all but halted IPOs, Bloomberg reports.

By identifying counterfeit shares, a stock acquisition can potentially combat naked short selling. When a company acquires another, it can require that all shareholders of record provide proof of ownership of their shares. This can help prevent short sellers from selling shares they do not own, since they would need to provide proof of ownership to participate in the acquisition.