At the SPAC of Dawn

Good morning! Watch this space moving forward as a roundup of evening filings as well as news nuggets to nibble on beside your morning coffee.

There are increasing signs that the capital markets and dealmaking are returning to normalcy, but there is still plenty of time for fits and starts before the end of the year.

October has already been the biggest month for global M&A since June 2019 with $139 billion in takeovers logged in the month with a week still to go. This has largely been spurred on by a handful of mega deals, most recently Chevron’s (NYSE:CVX) $53 billion bid for peer Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES), but even that is a show of potentially growing momentum as four of the five biggest deals of the year were announced in the past two months.

Strategic consolidation and private equity activity don’t always spill over directly into the SPAC market, however. On the traditional IPO side, the indicators are mixed. The $17.4 billion in IPO proceeds year-to-date in 2023 already more than doubles the $8.6 billion fetched by companies taking the traditional way to market in 2022.

But median returns on the year for this crop is still an uninspiring -53.3%, according to IPOInsider data. That has ticked up to -16.8% for the 18 IPOs launched since September 1, which is a significant improvement, but still perhaps still not quite enough to convince the markets that the salad days have returned

Deals

• TenX Keane Acquisition (NASDAQ:TENKU) has entered into a definitive agreement to combine with Citius Pharmaceuticals’ oncology subsidiary. Citius is expected to retain $675 million in equity in the Citius Oncology spinoff.

News and Rumors

• Bloomberg: Cyxtera Technologies (OTC:CYXTQ), which combined with Starboard Value in 2021, is in talks to sell a large portion of its data centers to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners as it undergoes Chapter II bankruptcy.

International SPACs

• Business Times: Live-streaming platform 17Live, which agreed to combine with Singapore-listed SPAC Vertex Technology, reported its operational losses widened to $118.2 million for the first half of 2023. It blamed this drop on the resumption of normal business activities coming out of the pandemic.

Liquidations

• Infinite Acquisition Corp. (NYSE:NFNT) announced that its board of directors has determined to redeem all of its issued and outstanding Class A ordinary shares, effective as of November 6. The redemption of the shares is expected to be completed on or around November 6 and the per-share redemption price will be approximately $10.78.

Scheduling Notes

• Healthwell Acquisition Corp. I (NASDAQ:HWEL) has postponed the completion vote for its combination with Starton Therapeutics normally slated for October 25. The SPAC has not yet set a new time for the special meeting but the change will extend the time investors have to make redemption decisions. The record date remains September 14.