Grabbing the peak-Spac moment | Financial Times

Anthony Tan describes his job as a “mission” to serve south-east Asians’ daily needs. Since 2012, his company Grab has grown from a ride-hailing app into food and grocery delivery, insurance, payments, e-wallets and lending across eight countries, fuelled by a young, mobile population.

Next stop is New York, where the Asia region’s most valuable start-up is finalising the world’s biggest merger with a Spac, or special purpose acquisition company. It would value the business of the 39-year-old scion of one of Malaysia’s wealthiest families at about $35bn when it lists on the Nasdaq.

Tan is this week’s Person in the News and his company may represent the high watermark for Spacs. Grab is coming to market just as institutional enthusiasm for Spacs is waning and short sellers are circling.

A crucial source of funding for blank-cheque company deals is drying up. Spac advisers say they are struggling to find so-called Pipe financing to complete their planned acquisitions. Pipe is short for private investment in public equity. Institutional investors such as Fidelity and Wellington Management have ploughed billions of dollars into Pipe deals since the Spac boom emerged last year, but they have become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of transactions and put off by rising valuations.

At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission has promised closer scrutiny of revenue and profit projections put out by businesses going public via Spacs, in a shot across the bows of their advisers and promoters.

Tan may be Grabbing his big chance just in time.

The Internet of (Five) Things

1. Amazon sees off unionisation drive
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, have voted resoundingly against unionisation, a major blow to the US labour movement and its hopes of gaining a foothold within the ecommerce giant. Around 55 per cent of the facility’s almost 6,000 workers cast a postal ballot. The “no” vote passed the required threshold of 1,607 on Friday morning. Lex says they were influenced by vigorous campaigning by Amazon and their doubts over the ideology and usefulness of collective bargaining.

2. School’s out for Ma academy
Jack Ma’s elite business academy has been forced to suspend new student enrolments following pressure from Beijing, as authorities tighten their chokehold on the Chinese tech billionaire’s empire.

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3. US adds Chinese supercomputing companies to export blacklist 
Three companies and four branches of China’s National Supercomputing Center were added to the US commerce department’s “entity list”, which bars US businesses from exporting technology to the groups without a licence. It is the first such move by the Biden administration to make it harder for China to obtain US technology.

4. Deliveroo maybe not caught by shorts
New data have cast doubt on attempts to blame short-sellers for Deliveroo’s disastrous initial public offering last month, as the food delivery company’s stock fell another 10 per cent to new lows on Friday. 

5. Comment: blockchain and trading, AI and bias
Blockchain allows for faster and safer settlement than the current monopolistic clearing houses, writes Gillian Tett. You can think of it as a financial version of moving from the snail mail of post to zippy emails. John Thornhill thinks that Artificial Intelligence bias can be countered, if not erased, and suggests five ways to resist the embedded distortions that warp algorithms.

Tech tools — Meet the foggers

Jonathan Margolis has been using several methods to stay sane and sanitised during the pandemic, and has just added the Portibac 800ML sanitiser gun to his arsenal:

“The Portibac is what’s known in the antiviral business as a fogger. Fogging sprays micro-droplets of disinfectant on to surfaces and into cracks and crevices. They’ve taken off in China and are available for a lot less than Portibac’s £125 on websites such as Alibaba. However, Handigroup, the Cheshire PPE company behind Portibac, says it took care to source and improve the best of the bunch. And it’s a quality product, with a satisfying motorised burr when you press the trigger, a variable mist and a useful blue headlight to see where you’re aiming.”