Vertex Ventures and Pegasus Asia have on Jan 6 have filed their respective preliminary prospectuses to kick start Spac listings on the Singapore Exchange.
Vertex Technology Acquisition Corporation (VTAC), which plans to raise some $200 million, is mandated to complete its initial business combination within 24 months from the listing date with a business having a core technology focus, highly differentiated products and scalable business models, with the aim to improve people’s lives by transforming businesses, markets and economies.
VTAC focuses on tech in the spaces of artificial intelligence; cyber security and enterprise solutions; consumer internet and technologies; financial technologies; autonomous driving and new-energy vehicles; and biomedical technologies digital healthcare.
In line with the listing, VTAC intends to acquire one or more related businesses that could bring value to the company.
The offering will see 40 million units in VTAC being offered at $5.00 per unit by way of initial public offering (IPO) in Singapore.
Thus far, VTAC has secured 13 cornerstone investors to subscribe for an aggregate of 22.2 million cornerstone units to raise total proceeds of $111 million. It has also secured $30 million from its sponsor Vertex Venture Holdings.
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The 13 cornerstone investors include fellow Temasek-linked fund management entities Fullerton Fund Management Company, Venezio Investments; Asdew Acquisitions, held by notable investor Wang Yu Huei, DBS Bank and DBS Bank (Hong Kong); alternative investment firm Dymon Asia Capital (Singapore); Malaysia-based fund manager Fortress Capital Asset Management; Greenpark Investment; Linden Capital; Lion Global Investors; Target Asset Management; The Segantii Asia-Pacific Equity Multi-Strategy Fund and UBS Asset Management.
Vertex Ventures is a Singapore-based global venture capital platform, which provides anchor funding and operational support to a proprietary global network of venture capital funds, through a master fund structure. It currently has an active portfolio of over 200 portfolio companies and manages over US$5.1 billion AUM, of which approximately US$3.7 billion AUM is managed by 18 global network funds (Vertex Network Funds) managed by independent general partners.
100% of gross proceeds raised from the offering and issuance of the cornerstone units and sponsor IPO investment units will be placed in an escrow account (complying with the SGX-ST requirement whereby at least 90% of gross proceeds are to be placed in an escrow account).
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VTAC will be led by non-executive chairman Chua Kee Lock, as well as executive director and CEO Jiang Honghui and CFO Sito Tuck Wai.
The joint global coordinators, joint bookrunners and joint underwriters are Credit Suisse (Singapore), DBS Bank, Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore).
Pegasus Asia Spac, backed by Tikehau Capital and other partners, has similarly lodged its preliminary prospectus of its SPAC IPO on the Singapore Exchange (SGX).
As indicated in the prospectus, Pegasus Asia plans to offer 25.6 million units at $5 each, raising some $128 million, subject to over-allotment.
Pegasus Asia plans to target companies or businesses in the technology-enabled sectors such as consumer-tech, fintech, prop-tech, insurance-tech, health-tech and digital services in the Asia Pacific region.
The sponsors of this Spac, Tikehau Capital, Financière Agache, Diego De Giorgi and Jean Pierre Mustier, have collectively raised approximately €483.6 million successfully during the recent launch of Pegasus Europe, which is among the largest European listed SPACs to date.
The Spac's chairman is Eleanor Seet and CEO is Neil Parekh.
The same group of sponsors have also launched their second Spac, Pegasus Entrepreneurial Acquisition Company Europe B.V, raising €210 million including an upsize of €10 million resulting from strong investor demand.
The financial firms arranging the Pegasus Asia Spac are Citi and UBS.
