Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#21

Post by nceqs3 »

texasbigdata wrote: post #10
math-dev wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are PIPE investors? Do they get favourable terms?

Private investment in public equity. Generally, yes, but it's negotiated arm's length yet opaque; in addition there's various consideration to the legality/optics/consequences of selling a (large) stake at a (material) discount to current market spot rates.

That is why it is especially disgusting when fake populist SPAC sponsors (looking at you Chamath) pretend to be on the side of retail as they give handouts to their Wall Street lords.

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#22

Post by nceqs3 »

ethanolburner wrote: post #17
pmorici wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reputable companies don’t need SPACs. I’d guess there is close to zero chance of any SPAC landing a high quality company like stripe, Starlink etc...

You are generalizing too ambitiously. It is true that (for the most part) reputable companies do not need SPACs. However, that is not the same as saying there is a close-to-zero chance for a SPAC to land a high quality company. I have numerous friends in IB who specialize in this, and I have been told that $PSTH has a high chance of landing a 'quality' target. The scale of $PSTH is huge ($4 billion guaranteed capital…

Elon already said Starlink is not going public for a while because it doesn't have the cash flow yet. Ackman said on BLOOMBERG TV that Stripe & Airbnb said they were not interested in using his SPAC. Patrick and John Collison have both been very anti going public and so I doubt they will have a change of heart. They also have voting control of the company.

The only real possibility is Bloomberg LP, although Bloomberg had denied the rumors.

It's also funny that everybody seems to forget about Valeant and Herbalife...

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#23

Post by jffry »

pjc50 wrote: post #13

Registration-walled and complains if you open it in private mode (how?)

By default in Firefox, indexedDB is disabled in private browsing mode (dom.indexedDB.privateBrowsing.enabled=false in about:flags), so you can detect it with something like

  var db = indexedDB.open("test");
  db.onerror = () => console.log('private browsing');
  db.onsuccess = () => console.log('not private browsing');
Based on Bugzilla, it seems like currently the backing mechanism for implementing indexedDB will write origin names to disk which is not something they want Private Browsing to do. See this older bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=781982 and this newer one https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1639542

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#24

Post by ethanolburner »

nceqs3 wrote: post #22
ethanolburner wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are generalizing too ambitiously. It is true that (for the most part) reputable companies do not need SPACs. However, that is not the same as saying there is a close-to-zero chance for a SPAC to land a high quality company. I have numerous friends in IB who specialize in this, and I have been told that $PSTH has a high chance of landing a 'quality' target. The scale of $PSTH is huge ($4 billion guaranteed capital…

Elon already said Starlink is not going public for a while because it doesn't have the cash flow yet. Ackman said on BLOOMBERG TV that Stripe & Airbnb said they were not interested in using his SPAC. Patrick and John Collison have both been very anti going public and so I doubt they will have a change of heart. They also have voting control of the company. The only real possibility is Bloomberg LP, although Bloomberg…

"The only real possibility is Bloomberg LP, although Bloomberg had denied the rumors"

And how did you come to this conclusion? There are many, many private companies that fit the criteria outlined in the S1.

"It's also funny that everybody seems to forget about Valeant and Herbalife... "

I have not met a single person who does not think of those events when discussing about Ackman. In fact, during his COVID-19 short & CNBC interview, there was no shortage of discussion about Valeant and Herbalife on financial twitter/Reddit/news comments.

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#25

Post by tehlike »

jonnybgood wrote: post #14
pmorici wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reputable companies don’t need SPACs. I’d guess there is close to zero chance of any SPAC landing a high quality company like stripe, Starlink etc...

There’s a good number of reputable top of the industry companies who went the SPAC route. Off the top of my head: United Wholesale Mortgage, DraftKings, Desktop Metal, ChargePoint

Or lucid

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#26

Post by pmorici »

tehlike wrote: post #25
jonnybgood wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a good number of reputable top of the industry companies who went the SPAC route. Off the top of my head: United Wholesale Mortgage, DraftKings, Desktop Metal, ChargePoint

Or lucid

Lucid isn’t in the same class as stripe or Starlink. It hasn’t sold a single car let alone turned a profit. That is solid SPAC territory

Re: Big SPAC deals don’t need big SPACs

#27

Post by tehlike »

pmorici wrote: post #26
tehlike wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or lucid

Lucid isn’t in the same class as stripe or Starlink. It hasn’t sold a single car let alone turned a profit. That is solid SPAC territory

Maybe, except i think you can say at least their team is pretty solid.
Post reply on HN