European SPACs Data Hub

The EU SPAC IPO market has put on the brakes through the first half of 2022, as geopolitical and macro-economic headwinds have seen investors and issuers step back and put IPOs on hold.

There were only eight SPAC IPOs on European exchanges during the first half of 2022, down more than 50 per cent year-on-year from the 17 listings in H1 2021. Proceeds have slid from US$5.11 billion in H1 2021 to US$1.78 billion over the first half of 2022.

In a quiet market, the UK has been the most popular jurisdiction for IPOs by SPAC sponsors on European stock exchanges. The UK secured more than two-thirds (38.7 per cent) of EU SPAC IPO volume with three listings.

The Netherlands, the go-to European jurisdiction for EU SPAC listings in 2021, recorded two IPOs during the first half of 2022, holding joint-second place for IPO volumes with Germany.

The UK has also been the biggest EU SPAC IPO market by value as well, with listings worth US$810.14 million in H1 2022, followed by the Netherlands with proceeds of US$451.65 million and Germany with US$363.02 million.

The trend of European SPAC sponsors moving back to domestic exchanges rather than looking to IPO in the US has continued to play out, as tighter regulatory oversight and cooling investor appetite make US exchanges less appealing than at the peak of the US SPAC boom in the first half of 2021.

The US has only attracted two listings from EU SPAC sponsors in H1 2022, representing a 15.4 per cent share of EU SPAC sponsor IPO activity. This is down from a market share of 18.4 per cent in 2021 and 55.6 per cent in 2020.

De-SPAC M&A value for European assets has mirrored a drop in wider M&A markets during H1 2022. De- SPAC deal value for European targets totalled US$20.86 billion through the first half of the year, less than half the US$42.53 billion secured over the same period in 2021.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, deal value has also more than halved, dropping from US$14.62 billion in Q1 2022 to US$6.23 billion in Q2 2022. But although year-on-year and quarterly deal values have declined, the market remains significantly larger than it was before the surge in SPAC activity in 2021. Over the first half of 2019 and 2020, for example, de-SPAC deal value for European targets only totalled US$380 million and US$2.35 billion respectively.

De-SPAC deal volumes for European targets, meanwhile, have proved relatively resilient, despite the drop in overall deal value. There have been 22 deals in the year to the end of June 2022, only slightly down year-on-year from 25 deals.

US SPACs are still the most active SPAC dealmakers for European targets. De-SPAC deal value involving a US sponsor totalled US$12.35 billion in H1 2022, more than three times larger than the US$4.09 billion of deal value recorded by SPACs in the Netherlands, the next-largest acquiror nation by value.

US value figures have been inflated by the US$7.36 billion bid for Switzerland-based lottery group Allwyn Entertainment by US SPAC Cohn Robbins Holding Corp., headed up by former White House economic adviser Gary Cohn¹.

But US SPACs have been active in other jumbo European deals as well, including a US$1.01 billion move for Italian space transportation and services company D-Orbit by Breeze Holding Acquisition Corp.², and an US$817.75 million deal for gaming developer Novibet backed by Artemis Strategic Investment Corporation³.

The Allwyn Entertainment and Novibet deals, as well as a US$4.09 billion deal for European online gaming and content company FL Topco led by Pegasus Entrepreneurs—a SPAC managed by European private markets firm Tikehau Capital⁴—have ensured that media & entertainment ranked as the biggest sector by value with a total of US$13.43 billion.

Financials was the next biggest sector by de-SPAC deal value (although a long way back), with transactions worth US$1.87 billion, followed by technology, with a total of US$1.59 billion.

Media & entertainment was also the largest sector by volume, with five deals in H1 2022, followed by technology, with four deals, and financials and consumer staples, with three deals apiece.

_{1 https://www.reuters.com/business/european-lottery-group-allwyn-list-nyse-with-blank-check-firm-cohn-robbins-2022-01-21/
2 https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/27/italian-space-company-d-orbit-going-public-via-nasdaq-spac.html
3 https://igamingbusiness.com/novibet-spac-merger/
4 https://www.privateequitywire.co.uk/2022/06/24/315559/tikehau-capital-sponsored-spac-pegasus-entrepreneurs-combine-fl-entertainment}