Asia's ultra-rich are piling investments into blank-cheque firms

Hong Kong

ASIA'S richest families and individuals are jumping on the SPAC wagon, investing in the blank-cheque companies that have taken global markets by storm.

Family offices, including those backed by casino mogul Lawrence Ho, are piling into these special-purpose acquisition companies to generate better returns in the low interest-rate environment.

"We're seeing a growing number of high-net-worth individuals and family offices in Asia increasing their fund allocation to subscription for SPAC shares," said Dennis Tam, chief executive officer of Mr Ho's family office Black Spade Capital, which is building a portfolio themed on the vehicles.

"The SPAC market is very robust now, thanks to a very low cost of fund, which implies a low opportunity cost to invest."

Near-zero interest rates have prompted Asia's wealthy to seek alternative channels of investment, paying special attention to SPACs sponsored by large private equity (PE) funds like KKR & Co, and billionaires including Adrian Cheng, Li Ka-shing and Richard Li.

Hong Kong and Singapore could see the craze widen as the cities explore allowing SPAC listings.

Health-care entrepreneur David Sin, who has sponsored one such company, said: "This year we're going to see Asian investors, especially those on the private wealth side, increasingly get in on SPACs."

He is seeing a spike in investment interest from rich individuals and private-banking money. Some recent SPACs have seen more than 90 per cent of funding come from private wealth instead of institutional investors, he said.

SPACs raise money from investors, and then look to acquire another business, usually a private one, within two years.

If they fail to identify targets, then investors may elect to get their investment back at the initial public offering (IPO) price by exercising their redemption right.

Mr Tam said: "In this sense, it can be viewed as a safer investment than bonds because of a very remote default risk.

In addition, if you invest in the more reputable SPACs founded by reputable tycoons and big PE funds, investors may make a fairly high return."

Asian financial centres aren't the only ones looking to catch more of the SPAC market, which is dominated by the US.

The UK may ease rules to make it more attractive for SPACs to list in London, said a report this week.

Some are skeptical that the boom will be sustained.

Edward Au, Hong Kong-based southern region managing partner at Deloitte, said: "As the number of SPAC IPOs increases, there may be too many sponsors confident of their skills at unearthing under-appreciated targets, chasing after too few worthy businesses."

The risk of SPACs failing to make suitable acquisitions could dampen sentiment for the industry, he said.

So far this year, at least eight blank-cheque companies backed by Asian sponsors such as Primavera Capital and Hopu Investment Management have gone public in the US, raising at least US$2.42 billion, data by Bloomberg shows.

This is a spike from 2020, when 11 Asian SPACs raised US$2.26 billion for the whole year. Hong Kong-based Raffles Family Office, which managed US$1.8 billion of assets as at August, has offered its clients exposure to SPACs like Richard Li's Bridgetown 2 Holdings Ltd.

Raffles CEO Chiman Kwan said: "We've seen growing interest in the areas of cleantech, biotech and healthcare.

"Some of the crucial factors in choosing a SPAC sponsor to work with are their credibility, commercial acumen and track record for choosing suitable acquisition targets and closing deals." BLOOMBERG

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