First SPAC in Scandinavia Has Institutional Funds Piling In

(Bloomberg) -- Scandinavia’s first special purpose acquisition company was “considerably oversubscribed,” as institutional investors lined up to commit funds to the blank check vehicle.

ACQ, a SPAC created by Swedish investment firm Bure Equity AB, started trading on Thursday. The subscription price of 100 kronor a share was quickly topped when the market opened, with ACQ Bure AB jumping as much as 9%.

Patrik Tigerschiold, the chairman of Bure and ACQ, said the SPAC’s roughly 35,000 new investors can “look forward to creating long-term shareholder value together with other owners in ACQ.”

Blank-check companies are now a reality in Europe’s rich north, after enjoying exponential growth in the U.S. Still, there are some signs that sentiment toward the construction might be cooling, with the IPOX SPAC index down more than 20% from a mid-February peak. Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into the SPAC frenzy gripping Wall Street.

In Scandinavia, though, a number of the region’s finance-industry heavyweights say the model is poised for growth.

Read more: First SPAC in Europe’s Rich North Has Bankers Lining Up for More

Jan Olsson, the chief executive of the Nordic unit of Deutsche Bank AG, told Bloomberg earlier this month that his team is working on other SPACs in the region. Nasdaq in Stockholm says it’s already working on more such constructions.

The Details...

• Bure will receive a cash payment of 3.5 billion kronor ($406 million), it said in a statement.
• Bure has three years to find an investment target for its SPAC, which is longer than the standard time usually allowed in the U.S.
• ACQ’s largest shareholders after the listing are Bure (20%), AMF Pension (10.9%), AP4 (10%), AMF Fonder (8.6%), SEB Fonder (5.7%) and SEB foundation (4.9%).
• ACQ Bure has 35 million shares outstanding.
• SEB acted as sole global coordinator and bookrunner on the debut SPAC.

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