In Print: Volume 85: Number 4
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies: Spac and Span, or Blank Check Redux?
By Daniel S. Riemer
85 Wash. U. L. Rev. 931 (2007)
(PDF)
In September 2005, three former Apple Computer executives launched a new high-tech venture called Acquicor Technology (Acquicor). Acquicor raised $172.5 million in its March 2006 IPO on the American Stock Exchange. Although the amount Acquicor raised in its initial offering was unremarkable for a high-tech company with a prominent management team, Acquicor was anything but a typical high-tech venture. At the time of its IPO, Acquicor had minimal earnings and assets, no employees, and no business operations. Acquicor did not even have a business plan other than to “acquir[e] . . . one or more operating businesses.” While these traits would mean certain failure for a traditional startup company, Acquicor’s successful offering is an archetype of an increasingly popular investment vehicle: the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC).
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