We’re less than halfway through the year, but nearly $30 billion from so-called “blank check” companies has already been returned to investors.
That’s about 50% ahead of the pace set in 2022, when a whopping $45 billion from special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, got liquidated and sent back home, according to data compiled by SPACInsider, an industry research firm.
“Between debt ceiling and bank failures it’s been a rough start of the year,” Kristi Marvin, SPACinsider’s founder & CEO, told On The Money. “Everything has been ground to a standstill. It’s really challenging to get a deal done now no matter which way you slice it.”
High profile investors like venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya, private-equity billionaire Alec Gores, former Goldman Sachs COO Gary Cohn and big Wall Street firms such as KKR & Co. and TPG Inc. have all liquidated their SPACs and returned money to investors as the number of available companies to buy plummets.
But not everyone is mourning the end of the SPAC era.
In fact, some are cheering its demise.
“What people don’t realize is liquidations are a good thing,” Marvin said. “You don’t want a sponsor team to drag a deal across the finish line just to get it done.”
“SPAC sponsors are being responsible here — investors would much rather see a SPAC deal liquidate,” she added.
Many investors who have been getting their money back plus interest are breathing a sigh of relief that the blank-check companies they invested in didn’t force a deal.
“I’m getting everything back,” one investor told On The Money. “Things could’ve been a lot worse… especially if I’d invested the money in NFTs.”