– SPACs have become a hot-button topic in global finance
– The vehicle is widely used to help tech start-ups go public
– Both Singapore’s and Indonesia’s exchanges are set to allow SPACs
– Several South-east Asian tech unicorns may use SPACs to list publicly

South-east Asia is seeing a wave of interest in special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, with various major tech players considering them as a means to fast-track public listings. In parallel to this, several exchanges in the region are moving to allow SPAC listings, with a view to boosting post-coronavirus growth.

SPACs are shell companies set up by investors and then listed on a given stock exchange. Their sole function is to acquire a private company, enabling it to go public without having to go through a traditional initial public offering (IPO).

A SPAC does nothing beyond its essential function – it neither produces nor sells anything, and a SPAC’s only assets are the funds raised from its own IPO.

Crucially, people who buy into a SPAC do not know what its eventual acquisition target or targets will be. This is why SPACs are often referred to as “blank cheque companies”: they give the founders a free rein to back their choice of private company. A key feature of SPACs is that they are often headed by big-name business executives or fund managers, who trade on past successes to inspire trust in investors.

While they are far from a novel phenomenon, SPACs have become a hot button topic in recent times: SPAC initial offerings quadrupled last year, with the vehicles raising a record $80bn.

Merging with a SPAC enables a company to go public and raise capital more quickly and painlessly than with a traditional IPO, circumventing some of the volatility that Covid-19 unleashed on global markets. At the same time, they function rather like venture capital, helping investors to buy into high-growth start-ups on the ground floor.

Read More

About the author

With some of the industry’s most experienced analysts conducting on-the-ground research throughout the year, OBG provides its global readership with the business intelligence they need to stay ahead.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Get notified of our weekly selection of news

You May Also Like

Reshoring China Production to Thailand: Key Sectors that Benefit

Thailand is benefitting from Sino-US trade tensions with several Chinese-based firms relocating part of their supply chain to Thailand, especially for electronics, chemicals, and automotive

Finance Ministry economic projections target 3.0 to 3.5% GDP growth

The state welfare campaign for this year has seen 21.45 million applicants. The FPO says these rather high applications are a result of pandemic-driven economic impacts.

JD.com to cease operations in Thailand and Indonesia

Local websites showed JD.com will end its services in Thailand from March 3 and in Indonesia from the end of the same month. Both units will stop taking orders on February 15.