This paper examines timing of reverse mergers (takeovers) and behaviour of managers of firms that go public in reverse mergers. Results suggest that small private firms go public through mergers with financially distressed firms when market conditions are unfavourable, whereas reverse takeovers...

This paper provides a literature review in order to capture the state of the Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) market, incorporating the most recent research from 2020 and 2021. SPACs are an alternative way to take a company public. Rather than going through the traditional IPO process...

The IPO market provides an interesting setting for examining the behavior of private equity (PE) sponsors due to the higher information asymmetries it involves compared to other exit strategies. Contrary to the hypothesis that PE sponsors are more professional than other insiders in using the...

We examine the relation between venture capital (VC) investments, M&A activity, and merger competition laws in 48 countries around the world. We find evidence of a strong positive association between VC investments and lagged M&A activity, consistent with the hypothesis that an active M&A market...

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are simply enterprises that raise money from the public with the intention of purchasing an existing business and become publicly-traded in the securities markets. If the SPAC is successful in raising money and the acquisition takes place, the target...

We examine IPO and acquisition waves, exit choices, and pre-money valuations at exit for 7082 venture-backed private companies over the 19-year period from 1978 through 2006. Consistent with other literature, we hypothesize that levels of IPO and acquisition activity and the choice between IPO...

Drawing from the literature on entrepreneurial overconfidence and M&As, we argue that founder CEO-managed firms perform worse than professional CEO-managed firms when they participate in M&A transactions. We test our predictions using a sample of acquisitions by newly listed US public firms from...

This study examines how Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have been used as a financing tool for the shipping industry in period 2004-2013. SPACs that focused on acquisitions in the shipping industry statistically have similar characteristics as the population of SPACs that entered...

Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are a special type of public companies currently available to investors in financial markets. As an investment vehicle, modern SPACs are traced back to 18th century England where blank checks were first mentioned as blind pools during the infamous...

This paper studies how institutional characteristics of Specified Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are related to their post-merger survival. SPACs are unique financial firms that conduct the IPO with the solely purpose to use the proceeds to acquire another private company. Paper finds...