SPAC

abbreviation or noun

ˈspak 

plural SPACs

: special purpose acquisition company

Wall Street's biggest gold rush of recent years, SPACs are listed shell companies that raise funds to acquire a private company and take it public, allowing targets to sidestep the more onerous paperwork and regulatory checks faced by traditional initial public offerings.

—Katanga Johnson

Although special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) could potentially fill some of this capital-providing role, they tend to focus more on larger businesses.

—Will Rhind

Examples of SPAC in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Filing shares for resale is normal for companies that have recently gone public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which Trump Media did last month after merging with Digital World Acquisition. —Taylor Wilson, USA TODAY, 16 Apr. 2024

Popular on Variety Under the SPAC deal that made TMTG a public company, Trump held 78.75 million shares in the company. —Todd Spangler, Variety, 15 Apr. 2024

Trump Media, the company behind former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social, went public on the Nasdaq under the ticker DJT on March 26, after completing its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. —Rocio Fabbro, Quartz, 12 Apr. 2024

That number fell to 31 SPAC IPOs in 2022 and has since continued this downward trend. —María Soledad Davila Calero, Fortune, 12 Apr. 2024

Related article Two investors in Trump Media insider trading case plead guilty Companies that go public through a traditional initial public offering (IPO) or by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), like Trump Media did, tend to experience a bumpy ride at first. —Matt Egan, CNN, 9 Apr. 2024

Typically, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, is formed with the intent to merge with a private company before it becomes publicly traded — in this instance, Trump Media, which owns Truth Social. —Jay Weaver, Miami Herald, 3 Apr. 2024

The goal all along was to take Trump Media public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. —Joe Rennison, New York Times, 3 Apr. 2024

In 2017, Epstein topped the Fortune World’s Greatest Leaders list. Beane and Henry did come close to consummating their professional relationship in October 2020 when FSG was slated to go public via a SPAC that Beane co-chaired with Cardinale. —Paolo Confino, Fortune, 2 Apr. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1994, in the meaning defined above