The Latest SPAC News and Rumors: September 12, 2022
Below is a daily summary of links to the latest SPAC news and rumors gathered across the web.
Latest SPAC News: Nikola’s Trevor Milton faces NY jury, Byju’s failure to publish accounts prompts scrutiny, and SPACs underwhelm in Hong Kong and Singapore
Nikola’s Trevor Milton Faces New York Jury in His Toughest Sales Job
Trevor Milton sold investors on the idea his company was building the truck of the future. Now, he’ll have to persuade a jury his alleged lies weren’t material.
Two years after he abruptly resigned from the board of Nikola Corp. (NASDAQ:NKLA), Milton is set to go on trial in New York on securities fraud and wire fraud charges, facing a maximum prison term of 25 years if convicted of the most serious charge.
Milton, who founded Nikola in 2014, built the startup into a company that in June of 2020 was valued at $34 billion, more than Ford Motor Co. at one point. The meteoric rise — despite having no revenue at the time — was buoyed by investors in the height of the SPAC craze.
READByju’s failure to publish accounts prompts scrutiny of edtech giant
Byju’s, India’s most valuable start-up, is coming under intense scrutiny from the government, investors and creditors over repeated failures to publish its accounts, as funding and revenues dry up for the once-booming educational technology sector. The online tutoring company had benefited from stay-at-home Covid restrictions and is valued at $22bn, after raising nearly $6bn from investors over several rounds, including from leading private equity firms General Atlantic and Tiger Global.
It has also taken out $1.8bn in loans. However, the Bangalore-headquartered start-up has yet to receive at least $250mn in funding from two investors, according to the Financial Times.
Byju’s was reported to be in talks to go public by combining with a SPAC, led by Michael Klein’s Churchill Capital (NYSE:CVII).
READSPACs underwhelm in Hong Kong and Singapore in first year, as listings lapse and application peter out
SPACs have received a cooler than expected response in both Hong Kong and Singapore, with some launches from early in the year fizzling and few new applications emerging in recent months.
Hong Kong, where SPACs launched in December 2021, has seen no new filings in the past two-and-a-half months. The most recent prospectus, that of TechStar Acquisition, was filed on June 24, according to the Hong Kong stock exchange website. Previously, the market saw four applications in January, four in February, two in March, one in April and none in May.