Spacs: Is All that Glitters Gold?

Abstract

SPACs have been around for decades in the EEUU and often existed as last resorts for small companies that would have otherwise had trouble raising money on the open market. But they've recently become more prevalent because of the extreme market volatility caused, in part, by the global pandemic. SPACs are one of the hottest trends on Wall Street and have become a subject currently of great interest in Europe to the point that a public consultation has been launched in the United Kingdom to introduce new rules for listed companies whereas in Spain an amendment of the Company Law has been presented last 5 th of May, 2021. Some recent commentary has referred to a SPAC bubble and even to a SPAC hype. Nevertheless, some of them focus only on some of the successful deals avoiding some key features of SPACs´ complexity, risks and hidden costs.