Unpacking Chamath Palihapitiya’s SPAC deals for Latch and Sunlight Financial
This morning, investor and SPAC raconteur Chamath Palihapitiya announced two newblank-check deals involving Latch and Sunlight Financial.
Latch, an enterprise SaaS company that makes keyless-entry systems, has raised $152 million in private capital, according to Crunchbase. Sunlight Financial, which offers point-of-sale financing for residential solar systems, has raised north of $700 million in venture capital, private equity and debt.
We’re going to chat about the two transactions.
There’s no escaping SPACs for a bit, so if you are tired of watching blind pools rip private companies into the public markets, you are not going to have a very good next few months. Why? There are nearly 300 SPACs in the market today looking for deals, and many will find one.
1/25/2021 7:40:07 PM GMT
Toward the end of trading Monday, the Dow traded down 0.25% to 30,918.27 while the NASDAQ rose 0.37% to 13,593.25. The S&P also rose, gaining 0.17% to 3,847.82.
The U.S. has the highest number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the world, reporting a total of 25,127,570 cases with around 419,220 deaths. India confirmed a total of at least 10,667,730 confirmed cases and 153,470 deaths, while Brazil reported over 8,844,570 COVID-19 cases with 217,030 deaths. In total, there were at least 99,245,800 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with over 2,130,650 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Leading and Lagging Sectors
Utilities shares gained by 1.7% on Monday. Meanwhile, top gainers in the sector included VivoPower International PLC VVPR 24.71%, up 25%, and Just Energy Group Inc JE 17.99%, up 20%.
By Reuters Staff
2 Min Read
(Reuters) - Smart-lock maker Latch Inc said on Monday it has agreed to go public through a merger with TS Innovation Acquisitions Corp, a blank-check acquisition company backed by U.S. property developer Tishman Speyer, in a deal valuing it at $1.56 billion.
Latch will receive around $510 million in cash, including $190 million from investors such as Chamath Palihapitiya, BlackRock Inc, D1 Capital Partners and Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC.
Shares of TS Innovation, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) which raised $300 million in its November initial public offering, were up 43.9% at $14.91 apiece late Monday afternoon.
Founded in 2014, Latch has partnered with Alphabet Inc’s Google to develop smart thermostats and United Parcel Services Inc to make smart locks in New York apartment buildings.
Trading in the stock market used to require a mastery of all sorts of Wall Street jargon. These days you also need to be fluent in emoji: If a post on a Reddit Wall Street message board contains icons of rocket ships pointing upward, you’d best pay attention.
Some of Reddit’s favorite rockets are soaring again Monday even though benchmark equity gauges are weaker. From mall-based retailers like GameStop Corp. and Express Inc. to telecom blasts from the past such as BlackBerry Ltd. and Nokia Oyj, the r/wallstreetbets forum is minting small fortunes for retail traders who get in and out of the favored names at the right time.
10 Must Reads for the CRE Industry Today (Jan. 26, 2021) Roughly 18 percent of U.S. renters are now behind on their payments, reports CNBC. The Fed confronts the challenge of possible inflation spike after the pandemic, according to Reuters. These are among today’s must reads from around the commercial real estate industry.
Nearly 20% of Renters in America Are Behind on Their Payments “About 18% renters in America, or around 10 million people, were behind in their rent payments as of the beginning of the month. It is far more than the approximately 7 million homeowners who lost their properties to foreclosure during the subprime mortgage crisis and the ensuing Great Recession. And that happened over a five-year period.” (CNBC)