Below is a daily summary of links to theca latest SPAC news and rumors gathered across the web.
Latest SPAC News: Grab’s ride-hailing service disrupted across Southeast Asia, Swiss bourse to allow SPACs, and Swvl acquires ViaPool
Grab Suffers Hours-Long App Outage Ahead of Landmark SPAC Debut
Grab Holdings Inc., Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing and delivery giant, malfunctioned for hours across much of the region on Tuesday, an outage that comes just before the startup is slated to go public in one of the largest SPAC mergers.
Though Grab said late in the day that it had restored “core services,” users in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines were still reporting problems using the app as of Tuesday evening. Disruptions emerged early Tuesday morning.
The Singapore-based company is preparing to merge with Altimeter Growth Corp. (NASDAQ:AGC). Grab has postponed the $40 billion deal — announced in April and one of the largest-ever mergers with a SPAC — to the fourth quarter as it works on an audit of the past three years’ accounts. The company reiterated last week it expects the deal to complete this quarter.
READSwiss Join Europe’s SPAC Ride in Slow Lane
The Swiss are belatedly joining the SPAC party. Swiss bourse operator SIX on Tuesday approved brand new listing standards for SPACs. Such vehicles will be able to list in Switzerland from Dec. 6, later than in rival European venues, which collectively saw $3.9 billion of proceeds by the end of May.
The Swiss, like other European markets, are focusing on investor protection. Swiss SPAC vehicles will be subject to stricter disclosure requirements than regular listed companies, says SIX.
READSwvl Acquires ViaPool in Follow-Up to Queen’s Gambit SPAC Tie-Up
Swvl Inc., a Dubai-based ride sharing startup, is buying a controlling stake in Latin American mass transit company ViaPool, according to a statement provided to Bloomberg News.
While terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, the transaction values ViaPool at about $10 million.
The deal will bring Swvl into Argentina and Chile for the first time.
ViaPool’s acquisition by Swvl is its second since it announced plans in July to go public through a merger with the all-female led blank-check company Queen’s Gambit Growth Capital (NASDAQ:GMBT). The company has said that deal is expected to close this quarter.
READJudge Rejects Nikola Founder’s Bid to Dismiss or Move U.S. Criminal Fraud Case
A U.S. judge on Monday refused to dismiss a federal indictment charging Nikola Corp’s (NASDAQ:NKLA) billionaire founder Trevor Milton with defrauding investors about the electric- and hydrogen-powered truck maker’s technology.
U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos rejected Milton’s claim that he should not have been indicted in New York for securities fraud and wire fraud because his alleged lies were in Arizona and Utah, where he lives, and the case belonged there if at all.
Milton founded Phoenix-based Nikola in 2014 and was chief executive until June 2020, when it went public after merging with a SPAC.
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Terms Tracker for the Week Ending April 12, 2024 Welcome to our weekly column where we discuss the findings from our IPO terms tracker based on the previous week’s pricings. The month of April is still feeling pretty sleepy, but there’s reason to believe that will change relatively soon with some notable events lined up...
The SPAC boom of 2020-2021 brought the asset class into sectors they had never entered before and that had generated few if any public companies of any kind. Space was one of these, but it appeared to be a passing fascination as soon as macro financial winds changed. That could be about to change once...
At the SPAC of Dawn As portions of the market rallied suddenly yesterday from Wednesday’s inflation gloom, LiveWire (NYSE:LVWR) was among the surprising gainers. The manufacturer of electric motorcycles that spun out from Harley Davidson in a 2022 SPAC deal with AEA-Bridges has never been among the flashiest EV de-SPACs, but it has quietly provided...
SPACs have brought a number of sustainability companies to market, but the economics of carbon credits have always been on the edge of those specific opportunities. Focus Impact Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:FIAC) aims to change that with its $213 million combination with DevvStream, a Canadian company focused on generating carbon credits with proprietary technology-based approaches. This week, we...
At the SPAC of Dawn Yesterday’s high CPI readings may have dampened hopes of summer rate cuts, but the public markets do seem increasingly content to shoot towards the cosmos in terms of the new types of companies they hope to welcome. SPACs have been a major part of commercial space ventures accessing public capital,...