Methodology:
In addition to the traditional methodology used whereby any bookrunner or lead manager gets full credit for IPO size to calculate deal volume, there are two additional rankings – volume by number of units sold and volume sold % market share (highlighted in green). For example, if SPAC-XYZ raised $500 million at IPO, and underwriter A sold $400 million of the same deal and underwriter B sold only $100 million, that’s how they will be credited.  This methodology gives a more accurate window into the actual deal volume.

Below is the recently released Q1 2020 SPAC IPO Underwriting League Tables

This is a challenging quarter to evaluate. SPACs were on track to have a record quarter with 13 SPACs already priced by early March, and another 12 on file to IPO. Even the possibility of pricing 25 SPACs in one quarter would have been an astounding number, especially considering that there were 59 SPACs priced in the entire year of 2019. Alas, Covid-19 put the brakes on any new SPAC issuance very quickly so the results feel a little bit incomplete.  Additionally, keep in mind that the $1.1 billion Churchill Capital Corp III IPO, is so large, and so early in the year, that its pricing had a very large effect on the total numbers in Q1. Having said that, even with only 13 IPOs, we still had some surprising movement within the Underwriting League.

Since this quarter did have a few notable changes in rankings, both the 2019 Full Year Table and Q1 2019 Table have also been provided below for comparison.

UNDERWRITING: Q1 2020

Ranked by Volume

(All data is sort-able using the arrow keys (?/?) located in the header cells)

Source: SPACInsider, Ranked by volume

As for Q1 2020, there’s a new sheriff in town…Goldman Sachs took the top spot in the SPAC Underwriting League Tables for the first time, having ranked #1 based on total volume, volume sold and deal count this quarter.  Goldman Sachs managed to account for nearly 30% of total SPAC volume at $2.02 billion having been the left lead underwriter for Flying Eagle (FEAC) and dMY Technology (DMYT), as well as being one of the lead underwriters for Churchill III (CCXX).

However, Deutsche Bank was not far behind at number 2, with $1.3 billion in total volume and three SPACs priced as well.  These two banks, along with Credit Suisse, are the underwriters now leading the field.  Citigroup, leads as well, but typically, they lead on deal volume, not deal count, i.e., they do big deals, just not that many of them.  And if you do big deals, you really only need to do one or two of them to rank.

Notably, this quarter’s league tables are also missing a lot of the typical underwriters we’re used to seeing make the list, but this is mostly due to the Covid-19 slow down. Cantor, which led the Underwriting League in 2019, and ranked third in Q1 of 2019, didn’t register any deals in Q1 of 2020, however, Cantor does have the $150 million Collective Growth, on file to IPO. Same goes for BTIG, Cowen, Stifel, Nomura, BofA, and Barclays, all of which had IPOs price in Q1 of 2019, but none in Q1 of 2020.

We will unfortunately have to wait and see what shakes out in the second quarter assuming we achieve some sort of normalcy soon and the SPAC market starts up again. However, we do have a significant backlog and that means, as soon as the IPO window opens, it’s game on. The only limiting factor will be if everyone has enough capital to put to work for all of the expected IPOs.  However, all it will take is one SPAC IPO to set the wheels in motion again and give everyone the confidence to put money to work.  Once that happens, we should all be in for a very, very busy few months.

In summary, by the end of the second quarter, with a few more deals under the belt, we should have a better idea of where the Underwriting League is headed in 2020.  If we’re lucky, we’ll have priced all twelve currently on file to IPO, and then some.  Which should make for a very interesting half year League Table….

You can find all the League Tables by clicking here.