Novo Tellus Alpha Acquisition ends first day trading at S$4.86, 2.8% below IPO price

NOVO Tellus Alpha Acquisition (NTAA) NTU : NTU 0% on Thursday (Jan 27) ended its first day of trading on the Singapore Exchange mainboard at S$4.86, 2.8 per cent or S$0.14 lower than its initial public offering (IPO) price of S$5.

From the start of trading at 9am till market close, the units traded within a band of S$4.82 and S$ 5.01 after around 1.3 million units changed hands.

Units of the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) opened at S$5, unchanged from its IPO price. The units dipped below S$5 within the first 5 minutes of trading and traded between S$4.82 and S$4.99 for the rest of session before ending at S$4.86.

The SPAC announced on Wednesday that its public tranche of 500,000 units was 7.6 times subscribed while its international placement tranche of 9.5 million units was 3.1 times subscribed. Overall, the offering was 3.4 times subscribed.

Some 13 cornerstone investors had also subscribed to 16 million units. The 2 largest cornerstone investors, Affin Hwang Asset Management Berhad and Temasek-owned Venezio Investments had subscribed for a total of 4.3 million units.

NTAA's listing comes on the heels of 2 other SPACs. Singapore's first SPAC Vertex Technology Acquisition Corporation VTA closed at S$5.05, up 1 per cent or S$0.05 after its trading debut on Jan 20 while Pegasus Asia PGU : PGU 0% ended its first day trading up 0.4 per cent or S$0.02 at S$5.02 on Jan 21.

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NTAA said that it will target companies in the technology and industrials sectors in the Indo-Pacific region. This includes Industry 4.0, next-generation semiconductors, cloud and edge computing, artificial intelligence, medical life sciences and supply chain resiliency for advanced engineering.

Gross proceeds of S$150 million (excluding the over-allotment option) will primarily be used for the consummation of the initial business combination, the payment of deferred underwriting commissions, and payment to independent shareholders who have properly elected to redeem their Class A shares.

Each unit consists of 1 Class A share of NTAA, and half a public warrant. A whole public warrant entitles the holder to subscribe for 1 Class A share at the price of S$5.75 apiece. Holders of these Class A shares will be able to redeem their shares for a pro-rata portion of the SPAC's account in escrow at the business combination vote.

The shares and public warrants are expected to start trading as separate counters on March 14.