NetFin Acquisition Corp. Files for a $220M IPO

Well this is a pleasant surprise.  We had yet another new SPAC file to IPO last night, but this one has a FULL warrant.

Bucking the trend of half, third and even quarter warrants, NetFin Acquisition Corp. debuted their SPAC Thursday evening at $220 million and one WHOLE warrant.  Additional terms included 18 months, 100% in trust and a Crescent Term at $9.20. NetFin will be focusing on the Fintech sector and will be led by Martin Jaskel, as Executive Chairman, and Richard Maurer, as Chief Executive Officer and director.

As for Mr. Jaskel’s and Mr. Maurer’s backgrounds, their bios are all over the place and frankly, pretty difficult to read. In particular, Mr. Maurer’s, which seems to have an excessive amount of “action” words.  However, the take away seems to be that they both have a lot of experience working in finance.

However, going back to focusing on the terms, it almost feels shocking at this point to see a large SPAC come out with 18 months and a full warrant included in the unit.  This is because the last six SPACs to price have all been a 1/2 or 1/3 warrant deals, with the last two, large full-warrant SPACs to IPO being GigCapital2 and Proficient Alpha, back on June 6th and May 30th, respectively. And if we look back even further, the SPAC prior to those two that had a full warrant was Tuscan I, waaaay back on March 6th.  2019 has been absolutely dominated by very generous terms to management teams.  NetFin’s very investor friendly terms, on the other hand, look structured to SELL.  B. Riley ain’t playing around.

Additionally, the $220 million raise, as opposed to a $225 million raise, seems like an odd number but is perhaps a tip-off that they have a larger final size in mind.  Meaning, maybe they’re banking on an up-size to $260 million with an over-allotment to get them near the $300 million figure.  Or maybe they just like the number $220 million.

Again, SPAC investors have been on a pretty lean warrant diet, so NetFin feels like an “all you can eat” buffet.  It’s not a question of “will they be able to sell it”, but “how big will the book get”.

Summary of terms below: