SPACs aus Schweizer Sicht

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have been in use in the US for many decades and in their current form since roughly two decades with almost 1000 SPAC listings over these twenty years. A SPAC is a listed company that aims at acquiring or combining with an operating company to bring that company public (so called De-SPAC). For that purpose the founders and sponsors invest capital to finance the IPO of the SPAC, the search for the target and the business combination. In the IPO, funds from investors are raised only for the future De-SPAC. The investors acquire shares and warrants, decide about the De-SPAC, and are entitled to redeem the shares before the De-SPAC. This article shows that SPACs are not collective investment schemes. There securities are offered and sold according to FinSA. An offering to private clients is often not possible because the offer of warrants to them requires a product information sheet which is often not available. This article also deals with De…