The SPAC market offered investors only disappointment in the first quarter, but they may look back at the last three months as the good old days as regulators crack down on new blank-check stocks and enthusiasm for existing ones wanes, Bloomberg reports.
The IPOX SPAC Index fell 9.5% in the quarter, the worst performance since its July 2020 launch, and has lost more than 22% over the past three quarters. That comes as 610 special-purpose acquisition companies are hunting for deals and racing the clock to find one, and some existing deals are falling apart. SPAC warrants, which hold the promise of future windfalls, are trading at a fraction of where they were a year ago.
Heavyweight sponsors are pulling plans for new offerings. And that was before the Securities and Exchange Commission laid out plans for new rules Wednesday, putting the industry on notice that the era of bringing private companies public with overly rosy forecasts is over. Read more.
