“Beyond Redemption”: SPAC Shareholder Redemptions and New Excise Tax Could Lead to Year-End Rush to Close or Liquidate

November 09, 2022

Just last week, special purpose acquisition company The Music Acquisition Corporation (“TMAC”) called a special meeting of its stockholders.  It wasn’t the special meeting it originally envisioned.  TMAC was launched in February 2021 by long-time Geffen Records President Neil Jacobson to acquire a music business with the $230 million of SPAC IPO proceeds it raised.  The special meeting it envisioned at that time was one to approve an acquisition of a music company.  Instead, the special meeting to be held on November 30 is for the stockholders to approve an early liquidation of the SPAC and the return of remaining IPO proceeds to the stockholders.

TMAC is not alone in calling for early liquidation.  CNBC reports that 27 SPACs worth $12.8 billion have been liquidated so far this year through mid-October.  Along with this spate of SPAC liquidations, 143 SPAC IPOs have withdrawn this year and 46 de-SPAC transactions (acquisitions of operating companies by SPACs) were terminated.  This is an incredible turn of events from the SPAC hysteria we went through in 2020 and most of last year, when SPACs constituted more than half of the record number of IPOs.

One way that SPAC sponsors got lots of investors to invest in SPACs in the first place is by giving them redemption rights.  A SPAC investor may opt out of a proposed de-SPAC transaction and be entitled to his pro rata share of the IPO proceeds which are required to be held in trust.  Another investor protection is that a SPAC must liquidate and distribute those proceeds to the SPAC investors if it fails to complete a de-SPAC acquisition within a set timeline, typically two years. That two-year deadline has proven to be a ticking time bomb:  too many buyers chasing too few viable targets.

The increasing propensity of SPAC investors to seek redemption has created multiple problems for SPACs and their sponsors.  A standard condition to a target’s obligation to close a de-SPAC transaction is that there be a minimum amount of combined cash available from the trust account and from PIPE investments (private investments in public equity).  When aggregate redemptions get too big, the SPAC may fail to satisfy the cash condition, causing the de-SPAC transaction to crater.  Even if a de-SPAC transaction is able to close, excessive redemptions may threaten the financial viability of future operations of the post de-SPAC operating company because of the lack of available cash.  And more redemptions also mean a smaller stockholder base, which results in reduced liquidity in the surviving company’s stock.

The sponsor faces significant losses as well.  First, the transaction fees associated with effecting the IPO, sourcing, performing due diligence on, negotiating and documenting potential de-SPAC deals and getting them past the SEC regulatory process is an enormously expensive process and represents sunk costs to the sponsor; those expenses are not paid out of the trust account. These transaction fees have been estimated to average approximately $5-$10 million.  Second, the typical 20% promote to the sponsor in the form of shares in a de-SPAC’ed company is only worth something if an acquisition deal gets done.  If the SPAC fails to acquire an operating company and is forced to liquidate, the SPAC’s public shareholders at least get the IPO proceeds back with interest; the sponsor neither shares in the trust proceeds nor benefits from the 20% share allocation.  

But redemptions aren’t the sole cause for the recent string of SPAC liquidations. Another reason being cited by sponsors for liquidating now is the new excise tax under the Inflation Reduction Act, which imposes a 1% excise tax on any domestic corporation that repurchases its stock after December 31, 2022.  TMAC cited the excise tax as the primary reason it was seeking stockholder approval for a charter amendment to accelerate its liquidation.  Under its certificate of incorporation, TMAC could not otherwise liquidate until after the designated two-year deadline for completing a deal, or February 5, 2023.

A sponsor facing excessive redemptions has few options.  Sponsors will be loath to let a possible deal fall through and will thus have every incentive to negotiate with individual investors in an effort to change their minds regarding redemption.  This likely means some kind of concession from the sponsor, often in the form of a cut-back in the sponsor’s share allocation, typically 20%, in the company post-acquisition.  In fact, sponsors are getting squeezed on both ends as competition has been stiff among SPAC sponsors for targets.  This means sponsors are also under pressure to sweeten the pot for potential target companies by offering to decrease the 20% promote even further. Alternatively, the sponsor could seek supplemental funding to make up for the redemptions, either in the form of additional acquisition financing or as a line of credit post-closing to fund ongoing operations.

2022 was predicted by many to be the year of the red wave (turned out to be more of a red ripple).  It may be better remembered for another wave beginning with the letter “R”: a redemption wave.  Over the next few weeks, I expect to see those sponsors who are sitting on signed merger agreements trying to negotiate with SPAC shareholders to stem the tide of redemptions in an effort to satisfy cash closing conditions and close their de-SPAC transactions.  On the other hand, sponsors further away from consummating a de-SPAC transaction will have few good options and will be under enormous pressure to liquidate this year before the excise tax kicks in.