Vistra has launch its Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) service, which aims to provide a tailored proposition built around the key phases of a SPAC to address each stage of growth – beginning with an IPO through to de-SPACing and business growth.
Leveraging Vistra’s extensive expertise across multiple jurisdictions, sectors, and intermediary relationships, Vistra supports a wide range of SPAC scenarios. Vistra also provides leading entity expertise with over 200,000 entities under management, including Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs).
“As we experience accelerated change across the business landscape globally, SPACs have picked up pace and continue to develop as an alternative to traditional IPOs in capital markets due to the speed in which they can bring companies to the public market – providing the strategic combination of funding and know-how of sponsors to rapidly scale high growth businesses around the world,” says Navita Yadav, Global Head, Capital Markets, Vistra.
Essentially an IPO in reverse, SPACs are entities without operations that are listed on an exchange with the purpose of raising capital to acquire a target company that aligns with pre-defined investment criteria. Typically, a SPAC has two years to find a suitable target operating company, then effect a reverse takeover, after which the SPAC is an operating company.
Once the operating entity is known and the reverse takeover has taken place, SPACs may also wish to migrate to another stock exchange that more readily fits their operations. Should a SPAC fail to make an acquisition within the stipulated timeframe, they may also need to cancel their listing or admission.
“Although the process for public listing has accelerated via SPACs, there are still multiple considerations such as selection of stock exchange, jurisdiction for entity set-up, entity governance, and operational support to name a few. Vistra helps remove the complexities associated with going public through our full lifecycle SPAC offering,” says Debbie Farman, Head of Advisory UK and Global Co-Lead Advisory.
Vistra’s SPAC service is a strong complement to Vistra’s existing capital markets, international expansion, fund structuring and administration services.