Journal of
Italian
Banking
Association

year 100
 

Archive » July / August 2021 » The Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (Spacs): a growing phenomenon

The Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (Spacs): a growing phenomenon

Riccardo Ferretti, Alex Castelli
July / August 2021 - n. 7-8
Keywords: Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, Ipo, mercato azionario
Jel codes: G10, G15

The Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (Spacs) were born in the United States and have operated on the capital markets for at least four decades. Compared to traditional Initial Public Offerings (Ipos), their growth, especially in the Us, has been exponential. The financial literature has focused on the American Spacs, reaching the conclusion that the Spac Ipos and the Business Combinations have stock market performances lower than the market, while the sponsors manage to obtain very high returns thanks to the special shares obtained at discounted prices. The equity behavior of European Spacs shows more encouraging results than their Us peers and this is particularly relevant for retail investors who usually keep them in their portfolio for a long time.

Interested in this paper?
Buy the issue