Evidence of the Italian special purpose acquisition company

Abstract

In 1992 David Nussbaum with the support of the law firm Graubard Miller devised the formula of the specified purpose acquisition companies (SPAC): a financial vehicle that has the flexibility and functionality typical of the blank-check companies, which could provide investors with the right protections and guarantees in order to be a reliable instrument. The first SPAC officially debuted in 2003 through the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Millstream Acquisition Corporation which then completed the merger with Nations Health in September 2004. In 2005 the first SPAC got listed in European Market and in 2011 the first SPAC joined in the Italian market. The aim of this research is to investigate the features of the Italian SPACs System because it’s becoming a large phenomenon in Italy. This new type of investment is able to fit the needs of small-medium Italian companies, to solve crisis difficulties, to find new finance to grow, to be a good instrument for opening up venture capital and institutional investors respecting the past business history and the safeguard of corporate control. The study, then, performs an analysis on the Italian SPACs by examining their target firms, stock performance before and after the business combination and the impact of the SPACs on SME corporate governance models. These results will be compared with those of other research developed by academic literature.