Digital World (NASDAQ:DWAC) has postponed its shareholder vote to extend its transaction deadline for a sixth time, this time to November 22.
Although the SPAC has not yet formally announced the move, Bloomberg reported that it was explained during Digital World’s special meeting earlier this morning. The SPAC has been adjourning and postponing this meeting since early September as it has a number of balls in the air with the deal.
One thing that is not driving uncertainty is the stock price. Digital World last closed at $16.21, so potential redemptions are not the issue, or at least shouldn’t be. The problem could be as simple as voter turnout. Only 7.2% of Digital World shares are held by institutions and other SPACs with heavy retail ownership have struggled to get sufficient votes to meet turnout thresholds.
This problem may actually be getting worse as the record date for this vote was all the way back on August 12, meaning that only votes cast by those who owned the stock at least three months ago count. Many of those shareholders may have sold shares since and are unaware that the process still applies to them.
Daily trading volume of Digital World stock has been over 1 million shares 17 times since that date, with 10.6 million shares changing hands on October 13 alone.
Then, there’s everything else going on around this deal.
Digital World and its proposed combination with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) have been facing a long SEC review process as well as changes to its $1 billion PIPE. The transaction was initially announced on October 20, 2021, Digital World filed its first S-4 for the deal in May 2022. The outside date for the deal’s PIPE then passed on September 20.
Since then, investors representing $138.5 million of this amount have hit the exits, and remaining PIPE investors been reportedly seeking to renegotiate terms. To make things spicier, Billionaire Elon Musk also just bought Twitter.
Aside from being TMTG’s most direct competitor, a major part of TMTG’s raison d’etre was the banning of former President and TMTG Chairman Donald Trump from connecting to his huge following on the platform. Musk has been vocal in supporting various figures that have been banned from social media platforms, and it is widely speculated that a Musk-owned Twitter would allow Trump back on.
And while Trump has already stated he would not go back to Twitter, Trump has been known to change his mind. If such were to pass, TMTG would no longer have an exclusive hold on its biggest draw.
Then again, Musk’s recently announced changes to charge verified users $8 per month for features that had formerly been free (and presumably removing them from non-paying users), have not been well received.
For a heavily retail-owned stock, it feels like numerous news events could be cause for buying or selling of Digital World and the midterm elections are right around the corner.
Although its current transaction deadline is December 8, 2022, Digital World can get off of the extension vote train any time it wants by depositing $0.10 per share for an automatic three-month extension to March 8, 2023. But, given all of the uncertainty listed above, three months is unlikely to be enough to bring this deal to a close, and its team has a lot of incentives to keep trying for a free one-year extension.
Columbus Acquisition Corp (NASDAQ:COLAU) has filed for a $57.5 million IPO to give its team a second vehicle in circulation to hunt for deals. The same team IPO’d Eureka (NASDAQ:EURK) in July at a slightly smaller $50 million scale and this new SPAC would improve upon some of that foray’s terms. Both SPACs managed to...
At the SPAC of Dawn One week before Thanksgiving, SPACs are not filling up their plate with just five votes scheduled, all of which are extensions. Five of these are set to take place today, and investors are also set to get an update on one of the most successful de-SPACs of recent years. Industrial...
Terms Tracker for the Week Ending November 15, 2024 Welcome to our weekly column where we discuss the findings from our IPO terms tracker based on the previous week’s pricings. The drought in De-SPAC deals continues without a single announced combination since October 23rd. That’s more than three weeks now with SPACs experiencing a dry...
Few corners of the market have seen a bigger boost from the result of the US elections than the crypto industry, and SPACs are always sure to be drawn to where the action is. But, in crypto’s case, this is a play that SPACs have been involved in before, so the question is more of...
At the SPAC of Dawn As more information continues to trickle out about what investors should expect from the Trump 2.0 tax changes, it has become increasingly clear that the $7,500 EV tax credit is on the outs. Such a change could shift the strategies for many EV de-SPACs and prospective SPAC targets in the...