Morning Roundup: January 18, 2024

At the SPAC of Dawn

While East Asia continues to account for the largest portion of SPAC teams based outside of the US, the unique team behind Oxus (NASDAQ:OXUS) put a few more bricks in its path to completion this week.

Chaired and backed by Kazakh oligarch Kenges Rakishev, Oxus remains headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan and expected at listing to primarily search for targets in the former Soviet space. But, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upped the risk factor for that geography, particularly with many business ties leading back to a Russian market now under sanctions.

Instead, Oxus played it safer and closer to the market’s early 2023 tastes by announcing a combination with Canadian CPG food company Borealis. This week, Oxus got its S-4 for Borealis effective and released its first investor presentation on the deal.

Borealis’ updated financials show the company generated an estimated $31 million in revenue in 2023 from the sale of plant-based ramen products and it now projects to generate $21 million in EBITDA in 2024E. The SPAC has set a shareholder vote date of February 2, 2024, to complete the transaction.

Deals and Funding

• Quadro Acquisition One Corp. (NASDAQ:QDRO) has entered into a definitive agreement to combine with Global Growth Companies at an enterprise value of $3 billion. Quadro has about $16.9 million in its current trust.

News and Rumors

• PR: VinFast (NASDAQ:VFS) delivered 13,513 EVs in the fourth quarter of 2023, increasing its sales +35% quarter-over-quarter and increasing its total global deliveries to date to 42,291. The Vietnamese carmaker combined with Black Spade in August.
• PR: Momentus (NASDAQ:MNTS) raised $4 million from the sale of 3,687,000 shares and warrants exercisable at $0.96 per share. The company combined with Stable Road in August 2021.