SoftBank and Altimeter tap into SPAC IPO fever

摘要

For SPAC bankers, and there are legions of them these days, there was no holiday break as they rang in the new year by securing US$6.5bn for 27 new US-listed SPACs in only the first week of 2021. This new weekly record follows the US$11.5bn raised by 45 vehicles in December, taking the annual total to a record US$78bn in all of last year. There remain US$14.7bn of SPACs poised to go public, according to IFR data. "We were active throughout December," said one SPAC banker. "We even marketed a [back-end] PIPE on New Year's Eve. The appetite for new product is crazy."