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).
Silver Pegasus Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:SPEGU) has filed for a $150 million SPAC with Roth Capital Partners underwriting the offering. The new SPAC is laser-focused on finding a semiconductor or “systems solutions” target, which is an intriguing space given that the sector has been in the crosshairs of trade restrictions by nearly all countries involved. That...
At the SPAC of Dawn Space de-SPACs have been among the big winners from the market’s initial parsing of the Trump administration 2.0’s policy priorities, with Rocket Lab (NASDAQ:RKLB) gaining +30%, Redwire (NYSE:RDW) +51% and Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ:LUNR) +23.9%. Redwire got the double boost of Trump’s bullish words on space and also the announcement that...
Iron Horse Acquisitions Corp. II has filed for a $250 million SPAC with D. Boral Capital underwriting under its new name. D. Boral emerged in November from a messy dispute at the top of investment bank EF Hutton that was concluded with Joseph Rallo taking the EF Hutton trademark and departing the firm while David...
At the SPAC of Dawn This shortened trading week could be a rocky one as the market takes in the first wave of initiatives out of the new US administration and will have what are technically the first Trump 2.0 jobs numbers released on Thursday. It should be somewhat quieter for SPACs working through their...
Terms Tracker for the Week Ending January 17, 2025 Welcome to our weekly column where we discuss the findings from our IPO terms tracker based on the previous week’s pricings. We may be heading into a Polar Vortex, but SPACs managed to generate some heat this week with three more IPOs. For those keeping count,...