Contrary to my initial assumptions, blank-check public offerings are here to stay. Special purpose acquisition companies represented 21% of the cash raised in the IPO market in 2007. Citigroup Inc. recently filed a SPAC seeking to raise $1 billion.
The SPACs phenomenon is based on fundamental shifts in the U.S. financial markets, the first being the extended closure (since 2001) of the IPO window in the U.S. for small- and midcap companies.
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