Electric Vehicle Makers Find a Back Door to Wall Street

Apollo is just one of several prominent investors that have embraced SPACs. In late July, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, which is run by the hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, raised $4 billion in an offering on the New York Stock Exchange. Social Capital, which is run by a former Facebook executive, Chamath Palihapitiya, has backed a handful, including one that merged with Virgin Galactic last year.

Michael Klein, a former Citigroup executive, has raised a handful of acquisition companies under the name Churchill Capital. Last month, one of his firms announced a $11 billion deal with the health care services provider MultiPlan.

So far this year, SPAC activity by dollar volume has almost doubled from all of last year, setting a record of $31.3 billion, according to SPACInsider. Credit Suisse has been the most active bank in underwriting the deals, SPACInsider reports, followed by Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.

“It’s always challenging to do a big I.P.O. above $1 billion, especially in today’s volatile environment and the time it takes to file and tell your story to investors,” said Boon Sim, the founder and managing partner of Artius Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Last year, for example, WeWork shelved its I.P.O. after investors grew wary about the office-space company’s management and financial prospects.

In June, Mr. Sim teamed up with Charles Drucker, a former chief executive of the payments company Worldpay, to start a $525 million SPAC that is looking to buy a technology or fintech company.

Pension funds, mutual funds and other investors have warmed to SPACs partly because low interest rates have forced them to search for higher returns.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/business/electric-cars-spac-wall-street.html