Singapore’s Grab Holdings to go public in world’s largest $40bn SPAC merger



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Singapore’s Grab Holdings to go public in world’s largest $40bn SPAC merger

Grab Holdings Inc., the Singapore-based multinational ride-sharing and food-delivery start-up employing more than 6,000 workers to-date, had sealed a merger deal with a blank-check or SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Corp.), Altimeter Growth Corp., which in effect would take the Southeast Asia’s largest ride-sharing company public in US money market in a deal that could value the combined entity at $40 billion, marking off the largest SPAC merger deal ever as Wall Street shell entities or SPAC-mergers had raised a whopping $99 billion this year thus far following a record $83 billion in 2020.

On top of that, in the latest talking point of an SPAC merger deal between Singaporean Grab and the blank-check company backed by Altimeter Capital, the nine-year old Southeast Asia’s largest ride-sharing alongside food-delivery giant would receive a fresh capital inflow of $4 billion from deep-pocket investors such as BlackRock, Fidelity International, Tamasek Holdings, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign investment fund Mubadala alongside Malaysia’s Permodalan Nasional Bhd, while Altimeter Capital would lead the investment with a stark upsum of $750 million.

The transactions, in tandem, would provide Grab Holdings Inc., a roughly $4.5 billion in fresh capitals as beforementioned. Nevertheless, SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) or blank-check firms are shell entities that could be capitalized on to taking a company public following a merger or acquisition, while the SPAC or blank-check firms are allowed to raise funds through IPOs or from private investors to finance their planned mergers or acquisition deal without telling their investors about the company that they have been pursuing.

Grab to go public in US money market in $40 billion valuation

In factuality, latest Grab move to take the company public through a merger with a blank-check firm came forth amid a flurry of SPAC-backed listings this year following a dour 2020, while citing a through and through optimism over Asian tech start-ups, a head of emerging market fintech business at consultancy EY, Varun Mittal said following the announcement, “Institutional investors looking for Asian consumer internet exposure are keen to diversify their allocation beyond a handful of companies. ”