Below is a daily summary of links to the latest SPAC news and rumors gathered across the web.
Latest SPAC News: Nikola’s Trevor Milton faces NY jury, Byju’s failure to publish accounts prompts scrutiny, and SPACs underwhelm in Hong Kong and Singapore
Nikola’s Trevor Milton Faces New York Jury in His Toughest Sales Job
Trevor Milton sold investors on the idea his company was building the truck of the future. Now, he’ll have to persuade a jury his alleged lies weren’t material.
Two years after he abruptly resigned from the board of Nikola Corp. (NASDAQ:NKLA), Milton is set to go on trial in New York on securities fraud and wire fraud charges, facing a maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted of the most serious charge.
Milton, who founded Nikola in 2014, built the startup into a company that in June of 2020 was valued at $34 billion, more than Ford Motor Co. at one point. The meteoric rise — despite having no revenue at the time — was buoyed by investors in the height of the SPAC craze.
READByju’s failure to publish accounts prompts scrutiny of edtech giant
Byju’s, India’s most valuable start-up, is coming under intense scrutiny from the government, investors and creditors over repeated failures to publish its accounts, as funding and revenues dry up for the once-booming educational technology sector. The online tutoring company had benefited from stay-at-home Covid restrictions and is valued at $22bn, after raising nearly $6bn from investors over several rounds, including from leading private equity firms General Atlantic and Tiger Global.
It has also taken out $1.8bn in loans. However, the Bangalore-headquartered start-up has yet to receive at least $250mn in funding from two investors, according to the Financial Times.
Byju’s was reported to be in talks to go public by combining with a SPAC, led by Michael Klein’s Churchill Capital (NYSE:CVII).
READSPACs underwhelm in Hong Kong and Singapore in first year, as listings lapse and application peter out
SPACs have received a cooler than expected response in both Hong Kong and Singapore, with some launches from early in the year fizzling and few new applications emerging in recent months.
Hong Kong, where SPACs launched in December 2021, has seen no new filings in the past two-and-a-half months. The most recent prospectus, that of TechStar Acquisition, was filed on June 24, according to the Hong Kong stock exchange website. Previously, the market saw four applications in January, four in February, two in March, one in April and none in May.
Despite a week of general pull-backs in the market, fintech firm Ibotta (NYSE:IBTA) nonetheless took the dive and had a good week debuting via a traditional IPO in the choppy waters. The company, which provides app-based consumer cashback discounts on purchases, priced its IPO at $88, above its proposed range of $76 to $84, and...
At the SPAC of Dawn Happy Friday! SPACInsider has unveiled new presets on SPAC Performance accessible via the Data drop-down to easily sort for the highest and lowest performing active SPACs and de-SPACs. On the de-SPAC side, Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) continues to be well ahead of the pack, logging a 710% return by share price adjusted...
AGBA (NASDAQ:AGBA) stock is up over +90% this morning following a +211% premarket spike on news it has signed a definitive agreement to combine with social streaming video platform Triller. AGBA, the company itself, was formed by the $555 million combination between a SPAC of the same name and TAG Companies, a financial services firm...
At the SPAC of Dawn Since closing its combination with DHC last month, AI customer engagement firm BEN (NASDAQ:BNAI) has rolled out new partnerships with call center and healthcare clients. And, while it faces a fair bit of competition in the chatbot realm, several high-profile institutions have demonstrated that creating one that provides useful services...
Blue Ocean (NASDAQ:BOCN) provided significantly more texture today in the presentation for its $275 million combination with Asian digital media group TNL Mediagene, which it expects to hit profitability in the second half of the year despite a slight shakeup in financing for the transaction. The first big update in the first investor deck is...