At the SPAC of Dawn
A largely positive week is coming to end with a summit that appears to have brought an autumn chill to simmering tensions between the US and China.
Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden each offered olive branches and offhand “dictator” comments aside, both appeared to want to strike a more productive tone heading into 2024. The pandas are coming back, some sanctions will be eased and both sides projected confidence that nothing dramatic would happen over Taiwan in the near future.
Interestingly, Xi appears to have displayed the greater desire of the two for reversing several years of raising tension. Foreign investment in China has been dropping and the combination of a real estate slump and punitive measures by two successive US administrations have contributed.
But, while the photo ops may not persuade major companies to go back on their decisions to pull back from China, SPACs are increasingly playing a role in pulling other foreign capital in. Eight of the 14 new SPACs to file for IPOs so far in the second half of 2023 have been led by Asia-based teams leading Asia-focused search processes with most of them hailing from and searching within China specifically.
Three of these vehicles have since completed their IPOs and are now on the hunt – Global Lights (NASDAQ:GLAC), Quetta (NASDAQ:QETA), and Spark I (NASDAQ:SPKL).
Deals
- Bellevue Life Sciences Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:BLAC) has signed a definitive agreement to combine with Korean healthcare holding company OSR. The two parties initially announced a letter of intent in July.
News and Rumors
- UK Tech: Embattled mobility startup Arrival, which terminated a second SPAC combination with Kensington Capital V (NYSE:KCGI) after initially going public with CIIG, has secured a $50m (£40.3m) loan from its existing investors for a “potential sale or strategic alternative transaction.”
Sponsor Economics Sales
- International Media Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:IMAQ) entered into a Securities Purchase Agreement with JC Unify Capital and its sponsor to sell its 4,125,000 promote shares (75%) and 597,675 private placement units (25%) for $1.00.
Plum Acquisition Corp. I (NASDAQ:PLMI) has entered into a definitive agreement to combine with digital transformation company Veea for a total enterprise value of approximately $281 million. New York City-based Veea aims to simplify secure edge computing by improving application responsiveness, reducing bandwidth and data transport costs, and eliminating central cloud dependency. The parties expect the transaction to be...
L Catterton Asia (NASDAQ:LCAA) announced this morning that it has upsized the committed financing in its combination with EV sports car maker Lotus to $870 million in total. The latest fuel injection comes in the form of $750 million in convertible notes and PIPE commitments under so far undisclosed terms. Counted purely as a PIPE,...
At the SPAC of Dawn SPAC closing timelines can always be somewhat unpredictable, but PROOF I (NYSE:PACI) has the opportunity today to vie for a recent speed record today. It announced a combination with private aviation firm Volato 118 days ago on August 2 and its shareholders are set to vote to approve the combination...
Dune Acquisition Corporation (NASDAQ:DUNE) announced in an 8-K today that it has once again modified its agreement with sustainable energy firm Global Hydrogen. This amendment marks a reduction in Global Hydrogen’s equity value from $48 million to $43 million, alongside an increase in the available shares of common stock that is for the Global Gas Corporation...
At the SPAC of Dawn After mixed signals for the consumer sector earlier this month, initial Black Friday sales numbers have shown that Americans were not too stuffed for a shopping spree this year. Shoppers bagged between $9.8 billion and $10 billion in goods online, depending on one’s preferred source, either of which would be...