SoftBank Group Corp. intends to file Monday to raise at least $ 500 million through a company with incomplete verification, said a person familiar with the situation, which has touched investor enthusiasm for controversial listing vehicles.
The Special Purchasing Company, or SPAC, will be overseen by SoftBank Investment Advisers, which also manages the Vision Fund. It will be used to buy a company in which SoftBank has not previously invested, according to the person who asked not to be named, because the plans are private. The news of the moment was the first reported Sunday by Axios.
Kenichi Yuasa, a spokesman for Tokyo at SoftBank Group, declined to comment.
Rajeev Misra, head of the Vision Fund, initially unveiled plans for SPAC in an interview with Bloomberg News at the October Milken Virtual Conference. At the time, he said the details would be announced within two weeks. It is not clear what led to the delay.
The blank check company will combine Vision Fund’s expertise in technology startups with SoftBank’s relatively new focus on public equity trading.
SPACs require investors to put money into a stock before they know which company they will return. The SPAC manager then chooses a company, usually one that is privately traded, and pursues a merger that allows the startup to go public and inherit the raised capital.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. manages the transaction, Axios reported.
SPACs have been criticized as a more expensive way to make companies public than traditional initial public offerings and have been linked to foamy valuations. But the mechanism can also allow experienced sponsors to help growing companies. For SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, who has supported hundreds of start-ups in his career, creating such a vehicle could give him a new way to invest in start-ups while capitalizing on growing public markets for money. .
– With the assistance of Takahiko Hyuga