Big news in SPAC Land….Morgan Stanley has decided to jump into the SPAC underwriting pool with both feet by hiring Bennett Schachter away from Goldman Sachs. That’s quite a splash. Morgan Stanley has, until now, sort of tip-toed around SPACs having only been an underwriter on three deals since 2009 (Hunter Maritime, Leisure and Boxwood). You always got the sense that they were never fully committed to their SPAC program. Well that’s changed now.
Bennett Schachter had been Goldman Sach’s head SPAC banker, getting Goldman involved in a number of high profile transactions. Most recently, Goldman was the left lead underwriter on the $305.6 million Acamar Partners Acquisition Corp. IPO. By hiring Bennett away from Goldman, Morgan Stanley just signaled that they are very serious about committing to SPACs going forward.
SPACs just got a whole lot more competitive (As if they weren’t already).
Terms Tracker for the Week Ending May 30, 2025 Welcome to our weekly column where we discuss the findings from our IPO terms tracker based on the previous week’s pricings. May went out with a bang. Four more IPOs priced this week, bringing the monthly tally to 22 and the YTD total to 53. That...
June is set to be one of the quietest months in some time in terms of sponsors and de-SPAC’d companies coming free from their lock-ups, owing to the quieter periods for transactions closing that occurred six and 12 months ago. Up first will be company shareholders for East Asian media conglomerate TNL Mediagene (NASDAQ:TNMG) on...
Pioneer I (NASDAQ:PACHU) has filed for a $220 million SPAC to hunt for a healthcare target with a mix of industry veterans heading up its team. The new SPAC is the 12th new S-1 underwritten by Cantor Fitzgerald this year as left lead as it hopes to join the 10 SPACs that the underwriter has...
At the SPAC of Dawn This week comes to an end with a flurry of SPAC votes including three special meetings called for shareholders to approve business combinations. Aetherium (OTC:GMFI) was also scheduled to seek shareholder approval for its extension proposal, but has punted this vote for two weeks to June 13. Two of today’s...
At the SPAC of Dawn After multiple days of market rallies, traders are set to ingest a full plate of economic indicators today with jobless claims coming first, followed by a GDP growth revisions, home sales and a raft of Fed comments. GDP figures for the first quarter are broadly forecast to be revised downward...