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by JumpCrisscross 1496 days ago
> Was Goldman underwriting the formation of new SPACs when those SPACs are initially collecting money?

SPACs are chock full of fees to Wall Street.

When the SPAC goes public, it pays an IPO fee. The bank, having to comply with fewer regulations than in a traditional IPO, makes a healthy profit. When the SPAC negotiates a merger it pays M&A fees. When shareholders are presented with the merger and asked to vote that comes with a fee. If there is a PIPE, there are, of course, more fees.

Later, when the sponsors sell their stock, there will be brokerage fees for the block trade. And I assume, in the final stage of a SPAC’s lifecycle, there will be de-listing, liquidation and/or distressed debt fees.

3 comments

This suggests a new line of business for SPACs: SPAC SPACs. A SPAC who's only purpose is to acquire and then spin out new SPACs.
Sadly too late. It's called a SPARC. Huzzah!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobwolinsky/2021/12/16/odeys-...

Bundling assets, and then bundling bundles. I don’t believe that’s ever been a problem before, right?
Only if there is too much leverage and an poor accounting of who owns what

The Federal Reserve bought the shitty mortgage backed securities because they werent that shitty, the banks just had too many of them relative to the size of their own assets.

Even of subprime mortgages and adjustible apr mortgages only ~7% went into default by 2008-2009

A portfolio of mortgages where 93% are going to pay vastly more interest to you than the home is worth and you still have the home if they really default? Thats a good portfolio

The banks issue at the time was that they were leveraged up 50x, and they didnt even realize they were levered up that much

so a single month of 7% defaulting could bankrupt them

While the fed has an infinite sized portfolio without leverage, and bought all the claims and let them just play out which they have continued to do. Theyre profitable, correctly performing investments.

More transparent accounting fixes the problem with re-collateralized re-securitized assets

could sell shares of the management company that the sponsors come from
> And I assume, in the final stage of a SPAC’s lifecycle, there will be de-listing, liquidation and/or distressed debt fees.

lol, are these target companies saddled with debt though? I don't think so

Given the cash burn of the classic 2021 SPAC, if they're not riddled with debt yet they may well be as soon as the stock market ATM stops spitting money (which might be about now).

Which reminds me OP omitted dilution/share issuance as a mechanism for banker fees.

Underwriting fees on SPACs are less than traditional IPO as it is easier to get done.
> Underwriting fees on SPACs are less than traditional IPO as it is easier to get done

True, but the margins are wider. Most of the documents are boiler plate. The same investors were buying them in comparable chunks from deal to deal. All this before the boatload of the other fees I mentioned.