8 IPOs Filed in a Week – This SPAC Market is Red Hot

This morning, Ascendant Digital Acquisition Corp. and Property Solutions Acquisition Corp. filed their S-1s to IPO, for $300 million and $200 million respectively. Not too long ago, two SPAC IPOs in one morning would seem like a flurry of activity. Now, this is a regular occurrence. In fact, a total of eight SPACs have filed an IPO since last Friday, June 26, 2020, for total potential proceeds of $1.9 billion. The average size of these SPACs are $237.5 million.

We are seeing high volume of S-1 filings for different offerings, but also a push towards bigger deals from sponsors. The average deal size was $230.5 million and year-to-date it is $320.6 million, and expected to increase. Larger offerings like Tontine, the $3 billion SPAC from Bill Ackman and GS Acquisition Holdings Corp. II, Goldman’s $700 million SPAC, are pushing the average deal size skyward.

For perspective, 2019 was a record year for SPAC activity in both gross proceeds from IPOs and IPO count. 2019 had 59 total IPOs and gross proceeds of $13.6 billion. This last week we’ve had ~14% of the IPO activity of full year 2019. The pace has been frantic and even if this week is an outlier, 2020 should still be another record year for SPACs. There is a real potential to reach or even exceed 100 SPAC IPOs priced by the end of the year.

SPAC IPO filings since Friday, June 26, 2020: