Ten Spacs (Special purpose acquisition veichles) have been listing on the Italian Stock Exchange in the last five years and one more is ready to list (Space3) as soon as Space2 will divide itself in two, bringing 154 million euros to a newco. Actually Space 2 had raised 308 million euros from investors last year and has just announced a business combination with Avio aerospace company, which will engage just half of its dry powder (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
Italian market also saw another investment veichle which acted as a Spac even if it was not technically a Spac. That was Ipo Challenger, a private investment veichle which issued bonds to be converted into ordinary shares of a taget company (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The deal was closed at the end of 2014 on a double target (Giordano Vini and Provinco Italia), two companies active in the wine sector which were both acquired by Ipo Challenger, then renamed Italian Wine Brands and listed in January 2015 .
Another experiment is Ipo Club, a closed-end-fund aiming to be a 150 million euros feeder fund for a number of new pre-booking companies to be launched in the next few months by Azimut Holding and Electa. Those pre-booking companies will be similiar to Ipo Challenger (i.e. will issue convertible bonds) and will target companies to be listed on the Italian Stock Exchange.
The ten listed Spacs have reached a total capital market value of about 2 billion euros today including warrants. The figure has been calculated by BeBeez for MF Milano Finanza last Saturday Oct. 22nd.
Download here the pdf file including all the listed Spac and business combinations companies, with links to articles and the Italian Stock Exchange relative sections.
