Bil­lions of dol­lars worth of SPACs are rid­ing on the biotech IPO boom

Bil­lion­aire hedge fund man­ag­er Bill Ack­man’s push to raise $4 bil­lion for his blank check com­pa­ny, Per­sh­ing Square Ton­tine Hold­ings, is cast­ing a spot­light on the SPACs. And amid a his­toric SPAC boom, biotechs are set­ting sev­er­al records on what some ob­servers say is shap­ing up to be a third ma­jor track — be­sides IPO and M&A — to go pub­lic.

“SPACs were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 3% of the IPO mar­ket back in 2014, now they are al­most 35% of all new list­ings,” Jay Heller, the Nas­daq’s head of cap­i­tal mar­kets, told End­points News.

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