Two well-known financial managers in Switzerland have successfully brought a Spac shell company to fruition, a feat that many of their competitors have not been able to achieve. VT5, the first and only Swiss Spac shell company, completed its listing just before the end of the year and ahead of the deadline. It recently took the previously acquired electrical engineering group R&S public, with the company’s shares trading under the new ticker symbol “RSGN”.

However, the successful “de-Spacking” of a company acquired by a Spac shell has been a rarity in the industry in 2023. According to a statistic from analysis firm Dealogic, cited by the British financial portal “Financial News”, only 40% of Spacs launched in 2021 have found an acquisition target. Typically, Spacs have a two-year deadline to find a target, and those that fail to do so are liquidated and the capital returned to investors.

Among the rare successes in the Spac industry are VT5’s sponsors, Gregor Greber and the investment firm Veraison, as well as Tidjane Thiam, the former CEO of the now-failed Credit Suisse. Thiam’s Spac, Freedom Acquisition I, merged with Complete Solaria in July of last year.

However, the joy of successful de-Spacking may be short-lived. After its official listing on the US tech exchange Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CSLR, Complete Solaria’s stock has plummeted, disappointing investors and falling short of earnings expectations. Overall, the Spac boom has largely resulted in disappointment, with only a third of Spacs launched in 2021 finding and acquiring a target company. The real winners in this trend have been the banks, which have earned a total of $2.3 billion in fees for advising on hundreds of Spacs in 2021.

This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)

Information	Details
Geography	Europe
Countries	🇨🇭
Sentiment	neutral
Relevance Score	1
People	Tidjane Thiam, Gregor Greber
Companies	VT5, Credit Suisse, R&S Gruppe, Veraison, Complete Solaria
Currencies	None
Securities	None