The Daily Dish (6/14/21)
Welcome to the Daily Dish. We are your morning briefing for the SPAC market. Every day we’ll provide you a digest of the top headlines of the previous day and an outline of the day ahead.
Lordstown Motors Executives Out
Following an internal investigation of fraudulent preorders for the company’s planned commercial electric pickup trucks, both CEO Steve Burn and CFO Julio Rodriguez have departed the company.
There had been concerns that the company would not survive the year without additional money to produce the trucks. Lordstown was trading down more than 20% at $9.11 on Monday.
The company went public through an SPAC merger with Diamond Peak Holdings Corp and raised over $780 million and completed a merger in just 11 weeks.
LMC Board members and Dimond Peak Chairman and CEO David Hamamoto apparently forced Burns and Rodriguez out.
This is the second such instance for Burns, who was formerly the CEO of electric maker Workhorse Group and was forced out of the group in 2019.
Online Grocery Retailer Boxed Announces
Boxed, which is an online grocery retailer, announced that it would go public through an SPAC with Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp, with the deal valuing the company at around $900 million.
The deal will bolster the liquidity of Boxed with $334 million in cash with $120 million investment from Brigade Capital Management, Avanda Investment Management and Onex Credit.
Seven Oaks raised $260 million through an IPO las year. The current deal between Boxed and Seven Oaks is expected to close in the fourth quarter of the year.
Found in 2013, the company sells household products, groceries, health supplies in bulk to households and businesses.
SPACs Have Become Engines for Growth
Global Equity Markets have seen a huge infusion of cash with $83 Billion in 2020 and $53 billion in just the first two months of 2021. At the current pace, equity markets could raise over $300 billion in cash.
The investments have been channels into vehicles like SPACs. The main objective of the promoters of these vehicles is to inject the funds raised into the acquisition of strategic stakes to drive business optimisation and achieve alpha returns.
SPACs used to be regarded as a last resort as investing in an IPO with no commercial operations was considered unreasonable.
SPACs have reemerged in popularity sit offers a quicker turnaround for investments relative to private equity firms.
As the market develops, the SPAC phenomenon is bound to radically redefine the role of high growth, venture backed companies in public markets.
