Milano – After a long period of intense slimming treatment, the SPACs (the companies that raise money on the market, go public and then in the next two years look for a “business combination”, that is, the marriage with a target company to bring to the stock market) are returning fashion at Piazza Affari.
At the end of May it landed on the Revo list, owned by Alberto Minali and Claudio Costamagna, after a collection of 220 million and an – obvious – goal of moving into the insurance sector (Minali was for a long time CEO of Generali and then CEO of Cattolica). Soon, in the second week of July, the fourth Spac promoted by Attilio Arietti and Giovanni Cavallini (who previously listed Sit, Salcef and Lu-Ve) should land at Aim Industrial Stars 4, as the number itself says. The goal of the collection is 100-150 million (it is likely to stop roughly in the middle of the fork). According to market rumors, another pair of Spacs could be announced after the summer.
In short, the process seems to have started up again. Thanks, industry observers explain, to a greater rebalancing in the interests of the three fundamental components in this type of company: the promoters, who put their name and a fair amount of personal money into it; the investors, who subscribe the shares of Spac making an act of trust in the ability of the promoters; and finally the shareholders of the target company, who rely on the vehicle to find themselves listed.
Well, in some cases the “old” SPACs were considered by the market to be too greedy in the remuneration mechanisms of the promoters; moreover, also due to some stock market crises, on more than one occasion it was not possible to reach the business combination: a failure of the objective that helped to remove sympathy from this instrument, which in the United States is called “blank check ”, As it delegates to the promoters the task of investing their money in the best possible way.
“There is a desire to be a little more attractive, more market friendly – confirms Massimo Gionso, managing director of Cfo sim – and then almost everyone is taking precautions on the side of recesses, to limit them”. In the past, some “marriage” operations were skipped precisely because too many Spac shareholders asked for the withdrawal: if the 30% threshold is exceeded, you have to look for another company, times get longer and if more than two years pass, Spac is forced to dissolve, returning the 10 euros of the listing to the shareholders (even to those who have entered much more recently, at lower prices, aiming for the 10 euros of the liquidation price).
This is why we are trying to take cover, to avoid opportunistic behavior: for example, Industrial Stars 4 has limited the right to exercise the withdrawal, in the event of a business combination, only to the subscribers of the SPAC in IPO.
In Piazza Affari, after the golden two-year period of 2017-2018 (when they landed at Aim 19 Spac, for a total collection of almost 3 billion) there was only one listing until last May, with the IPO of Revo, also proposed with innovative features and limits on earnings multipliers for promoters (if not to an extent aligned with investors).
The opposite of what happened in the United States, where between 2020 and the first quarter of this year 546 Spacs arrived on the Stock Exchange, for a total collection of 180 billion dollars. An overwhelming growth, especially in the first quarter of 2021, which causes fear of the price bubble, thanks to the sharp increase in liquidity on the US financial markets: the SEC has raised the level of attention and perhaps not surprisingly in the second quarter of the year the new Spac quotations on Wall Street fell by 83% compared to the first three months of the year.
In Europe, in recent times the Amsterdam square has been distinguishing itself for its capacity of attraction (among the most recent cases, the Spac promoted by Jean Pierre Mustier and Diego De Giorgi), partly to the detriment of London, which is running for cover.
“We are convinced that also in Italy the SPACs can return to being an important alternative to get to the listing without resorting to the traditional IPO, also thanks to the innovations introduced with the latest tools”, explain Arietti and Cavallini, now in the pipeline for complete the collection.
Although far from American levels, the abundance of liquidity that is swelling the portfolios of large investors (from asset managers, to family offices…) in search of outlets is also valid in Europe. The SPACs, which in an initial phase had benefited from being Pir-compliant (those who invested had the tax advantages of Pir fund subscribers) could take back the scene in Piazza Affari. Provided you are not too expensive.
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