Spartan Energy Getting Ready to IPO this Week.
Spartan Energy Acquisition Corp., filed a new S-1/A this morning, with a few changes. The most notable change being a new banker in the line-up (and the removal of Apollo Global Securities).
New Co-Manager
RBC Capital Markets is now on the cover as part of the co-managing group that also includes Jefferies and Tudor, Pickering, Holt. The lead underwriters remain the same with Citigroup and Credit Suisse. This is a nice win for RBC and marks their first SPAC cover of 2018. Their most recent SPAC was the $345 million Mosaic Acquisition Corp. back in October of 2017.
RBC is replacing Apollo Global Securities, and based on pure speculation, Apollo Global Securities’ removal is most likely due to conflicts of interest. Not that those conflicts weren’t insurmountable, but since the underwriting group is so strong, why make thing difficult by including AGS and hence, the replacement.
New Independent Director Nominee
The other notable change was the addition of a new independent director nominee to the board with John Stice. Mr. Stice bring a wealth of energy experience to this deal having served as CEO of Access Midstream from the time it spun out of Chesapeake Energy until his retirement in 2015.
As far as Spartan’s deal size, still no increase. The transaction remains at $400 million, however, this IPO is widely expected to price Thursday, for Friday trading, so maybe we’ll see an upsize then.
Summary of terms are as follows:
- Focus: Energy (North America)
- $10.00 unit comprised of one share class A common stock , one-third of a full warrant
- Warrant call for redemption threshold: equals or exceeds $18.00 (cash or cashless exercise)
- Limitation on redemption rights: 20%
- 100% held in trust ($10.00 per share)
- 24 months to complete an acquisition
- Sponsor purchase of private placement warrants at $1.50 per warrant (7,333,333 warrants = $11M)
- Underwriting fees: 2.0% / 3.5% deferred
- Bookrunners: Citigroup, Credit Suisse; Co-managers: Jefferies, RBC Capital Markets & Tudor, Pickering Holt
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