Morning Roundup: January 16, 2024

At the SPAC of Dawn

The SPAC market has officially entered an election season with former President Donald Trump’s victory Monday in the Iowa caucus on the road to a potentially securing the Republican nomination.

The S&P 500 has had a positive performance in virtually every US election year dating back to 1928 with the exceptions only occurring when the market undergoing a freefall unrelated to the particular political cycle.

Returns have been higher on average in years when Republicans have ultimately won the election and this would be the rare cycle where a candidate is also serving as chairman of a company attempting to complete a SPAC deal.

Digital World (NASDAQ:DWAC) has to hope that its long-running saga to list Trump Media and Technology Group will have reached some sort of conclusion by November and the presidential race did lose one other SPAC alumnus.

Former founder of Roivant Sciences (NASDAQA:ROIV), Vivek Ramaswamy bowed out after the Iowa results, having funded his campaign in part through the sales of Roivant stock. Roivant completed a $5 billion combination with Montes Archimedes in September 2021.

Deals and Funding

• Newcourt Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ:NCAC) has secured a PIPE for its combination with psychedelic drug developer Psyence to provide up to $12.5 million in four tranches of convertible notes. Each tranche is to be for $3,125,000 of principal in exchange for $2.5 million in subscription amounts and will bear an 8% interest rate payable monthly in cash or shares. The investor is to receive 1,300,000 additional shares on consideration at the deal’s close and 1,700,000 more under certain other conditions.

News and Rumors

• Financial Review: Australian copper miner Metals Acquisition (NYSE:MTAL) aims to raise $200 million AUD (about $132 million) in a listing on the ASX after having listed in the US in its June 2023 SPAC deal.
• Bloomberg: ALI Technologies, the Japanese startup that unveiled a futuristic hoverbike concept, has officially filed for bankruptcy. ALI’s parent company, AERWINS (NASDAQ:AWIN), completed its merger with Pono Capital in January 2023.
• TechCrunch: EV-maker Fisker (NYSE:FSR), which combined with Spartan Energy in 2020, is facing a probe by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration into the braking security of its Ocean model SUV.