Finland’s first blank-check company says it plays a unique role in providing especially fast access to capital, given the limited resources private-equity investors have in the Nordic nation, Bloomberg reports.
Virala Acquisition Company Oyj last month raised 107.5 million euros ($127 million) from investors in an IPO in Helsinki, and now has up to three years to find a mid-cap company to buy. VAC, as the company calls itself, intends to give its target a quick way to fund growth as a public company and avoid having to sell to an industrial buyer, typically foreign, for lack of other options.
“If you want to remain in Finland, headquartered in Finland, and have a stock listing in Finland, the alternative hasn’t been there,” said Johannes Schulman, CEO of the SPAC. “Domestic private-equity players don’t have big enough firepower for this kind of transaction.” Read more.
