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Violations were found in 25-50% of audits reviewed, depending on the audit standard at issue, the SEC said. "Marcum neglected its essential gatekeeper function in service to its own growth," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement. The SEC found the deficiencies were not limited to Marcum's SPAC clients. In addition to the civil penalty, settlement requires Marcum undertake remedial actions including hiring an independent consultant to review its policies procedures and to abide by certain restrictions when taking on new clients. Reporting by Chris Prentice; Editing by Conor HumphriesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Marcum, Nikola, Gary Gensler, Chris Prentice, Conor Humphries Organizations: Nikola, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, SPACs, Marcum, DraftKings Inc, Thomson

☆ We're seeing a thawing in the IPO market, says NYSE President Lynn Matin following CAVA's IPO
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

In this videoShare Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailWe're seeing a thawing in the IPO market, says NYSE President Lynn Matin following CAVA's IPOLynn Martin, NYSE President, joins 'Closing Bell Overtime' to discuss CAVA's big IPO day, the IPO market-at-large, and whether or not SPACs are a thing of the past.

Persons: Lynn Matin, Lynn Martin Organizations: NYSE

☆ Glencore, automakers to back $1 bln nickel, copper SPAC deal in Brazil
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] The logo of commodities trader Glencore is pictured in front of the company's headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, September 30, 2015. Glencore will invest $100 million in ACG equity. Stellantis and mining investment fund La Mancha Resource Capital will each provide an equity investment of the same amount, while PowerCo will make a $100 million nickel prepayment. During the process, ACG will become ACG Electric Metals and issue new shares, making Glencore, Stellantis and La Mancha owners of 51% and leaving 49% for free float, Artem Volynets, ACG chief executive, told Reuters. The deal "will establish ACG Electric Metals as a premier supplier of critical metals into the western EV value chain," Volynets said.

Persons: Arnd, ACG, Mick Davis, PowerCo, Artem Volynets, Appian, Sibanye, Volynets, En, Rusal, Polina Devitt, Clara Denina, Kirsten Donovan, Jason Neely Organizations: REUTERS, Chrysler, Company, Santa, Appian, Chartered, Citigroup, Blue Resources, Metals Acquisition Corp, Glencore, La, La Mancha Resource, Metals, Reuters, South Africa's, Hong, Thomson Locations: Baar, Switzerland, Brazil, London, New York, Western Europe, North America, La Mancha, Stillwater, Santa Rita, Hong Kong

☆ Stellantis SPAC deal has suitably decent airbags
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, June 12 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Carmakers are in a race to lock in battery metals like lithium. For shareholders, the risk is that they tie up capital in expensive supply deals, or mines in far-flung locations with poor governance. Stellantis’s (STLAM.MI) investment in a London-based special purpose acquisition company deal looks like a neat fix to those challenges. In a complex deal, halfway between an IPO and a SPAC takeover, it will buy the Serrote and Santa Rita mines in east Brazil for $1.1 billion. Besides the original SPAC investors, the bulk of that will likely come from a public offering, and new anchor investors like Stellantis.

Persons: Nat Rothschild’s Vallar, Artem Volynets, Neil Unmack, Xavier Niel, George Hay, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, Twitter, Brookfield, Thomson Locations: London, Santa, Brazil, Teck, China

☆ Alternative asset specialist Beneficient set to complete $3.3 billion SPAC merger
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Svea Herbst-Bayliss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Last year, Beneficient announced plans to go public via a merger with Avalon Acquisition Company (AVAC.O). Avalon stockholders approved the deal on Tuesday, said the source who was not permitted to discuss the confidential matter. Beneficient provides liquidity and services to qualified individuals and smaller institutions invested in private equity, venture capital and other alternative assets. The company is expected to begin trading this week on Nasdaq under the ticker BENF and the combined company will be called Beneficient, the person said. Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are publicly listed companies that were raised with the intention of merging with a private company, which then goes public through the merger.

Persons: Beneficient, Brad Heppner, Donald Putnam, Craig Cognetti, Svea Herbst, Bayliss, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: YORK, Avalon Acquisition, Avalon, Nasdaq, Beneficient, Crossroads Group, Grail Partners, Putnam Lovell Securities, Svea, Thomson Locations: Avalon

☆ As the crypto lawsuits pile up, Cramer says get out while you can
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Julie Coleman | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

CNBC's Jim Cramer discussed market manipulation on Tuesday and advised investors to get their money out of cryptocurrency while they still can. "I want you to be able to protect yourself from scams that are designed to fake you out and part you from your money," Cramer said. [Hedge funds] made tons of money," Cramer said. But unlike the banks, Cramer said, at this point, he believes cryptocurrencies are primarily scams. "Sometimes, you get stocks that are manipulated lower like the regional banks, then you get assets that are manipulated higher on bogus exchanges, like a huge chunk of the crypto ecosystem.

Persons: CNBC's Jim Cramer, Cramer, cryptocurrencies, I'm, Gary Gensler Organizations: Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, First, SEC Locations: cryptocurrency, Silicon, First Republic

☆ Reader mailbag: From the impact of a US default to analyzing the IPO market, all your questions answered
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-26 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

An inverted yield curve means that short-term bonds offer better returns than long-term bonds, which seems counterintuitive. Well, there is a case to be made for an inverted yield curve not being a sign of an impending recession. Click here for more on why experts are questioning the inverted yield curve's reliability as an economic predictor. I suppose any number of companies going public might seem like a lot amid the current drought, but it still seems like slim pickings. On the one hand, a company going public now must have supreme confidence in its business.

☆ Nomura hires two bankers for transport technology deals
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Isla Binnie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - Japanese investment bank Nomura (8604.T) has hired two investment bankers to lead its coverage of mobility and automotive clients in Europe and the United States through its sustainability-focused division Greentech. "You saw in the "de-SPAC" furore a lot of standalone young electric vehicle companies raise capital. The reality is the path to success and scale, to build a standalone company, is dramatically complex," Duncan Williams, global co-head of Nomura Greentech, told Reuters. Investment banks in Europe and the United States raked in more than $700 million in fees for deals in technologically-advanced mobility and transportation in 2021, Williams said, adding he expected the area to remain lucrative. Reporting by Isla Binnie in New York Editing by Greg RoumeliotisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ The top large-cap fund manager from the past 12 months shares the simple change he made that completely turned around his performance — and 13 stocks he loves now
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( James Faris | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

That realization led portfolio manager David Miller to launch the Catalyst Insider Buying Fund (INSIX) nearly 12 years ago. While many funds factor in insider transactions when selecting stocks, few use it as their main prerequisite when screening investments. But in the last 12 months, it's the best-performing large-cap fund on the market through April 30, according to Kiplinger. All of these companies have benefitted from insider buying to some extent, but some have been lifted even more by company buybacks. "They've just been gobbling up their own stock," Miller said of O'Reilly Automotive.

☆ Vietnam EV maker VinFast to list in U.S. via a SPAC
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Vietnamese electric automaker VinFast said on Friday it will list in the United States via a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Black Spade Acquisition Co . The company has said it has almost 55,000 orders globally and is able to churn out 300,000 EVs per year. Black Spade Acquisition is a Hong Kong-based SPAC which listed on the NYSE in July 2021 with a plan to merge, within two years, with a company ideally in the entertainment business, according to its website. It was founded by Black Spade Capital Limited, the private investment arm of Lawrence Ho, the head of Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd, which operates casinos in Macau and the Philippines, according to the company's website and Refinitiv. "The partnership with Black Spade and listing of VinFast in the U.S. represents the perfect capital raising avenue for our future global ambitions," Thuy Le, VinFast's global chief executive, said.

☆ Impactive takes a stake in Clarivate and sets the tone for activism in the post-SPAC world
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-06 | by ( Kenneth Squire | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Business: Clarivate is a global information, analytics and workflow solutions company. Activist Commentary: Impactive Capital is an activist hedge fund founded in 2018 by Lauren Taylor Wolfe and Christian Alejandro Asmar. Impactive Capital is an active ESG (AESG) investor that launched with a $250 million investment from CalSTRS and now has over $2.5 billion. Impactive focuses on positive systemic change to help build more competitive, sustainable businesses for the long run. As with many SPAC companies, there were valuation, corporate governance and compensation incentive concerns at Clarivate.

☆ SPACs Delivered Easy Money, but Now Companies Are Running Out
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Amrith Ramkumar | Shane Shifflett | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Illustration: Ali LarkinThe SPAC boom took hundreds of risky companies to the stock market. The next stop for many is bankruptcy court. Dozens of companies that merged with SPACs are running out of cash, joining at least 12 that have already gone bankrupt after combining with special-purpose acquisition companies.

The reason this news pioneer is closingBuzzFeed’s decision to shut its news division — an innovator in digital journalism that published both prizewinning investigations and listicles designed to get clicks — drew many bittersweet tributes online. But its closure is the latest reminder that digital media start-ups, which deep-pocketed investors once valued at astronomical sums, are facing headwinds. With even tech giants struggling to navigate hurdles like a declining advertising market, smaller companies are facing potentially existential crises. BuzzFeed and its peers have also suffered from the same drop-off in online ads that is forcing sharp job cuts at Alphabet, Meta and others. BuzzFeed used one to list on the Nasdaq in late 2021 — and ended up raising just $16 million, far short of the $250 million it could have collected.

☆ Breakingviews: EV double-SPAC provides only weak recharge
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Electric-van developer Arrival just unveiled a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, valuing it at $524 million. The twist: It already went public via a blank-check deal in 2021, at a valuation some 10 times higher. Arrival’s fall mirrors other EV hopefuls like Canoo (GOEV.O), Faraday Future Intelligent Electric (FFIE.O) and Lordstown Motors (RIDE.O). Arrival’s latest merger promises $283 million of it from Kensington Capital Acquisition Corp. V’s (KCGI.N) trust account. British startup Wejo (WEJO.O)tried a similar second-SPAC gambit, though it anticipates backing its transaction with private investment.

☆ Chamath Palihapitiya was supposed to be the next Warren Buffett. Then interest rates spiked.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-09 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Chamath Palihapitiya was dubbed the "next Warren Buffett" after a series of successful bets in 2019 and 2020. Palihapitiya even compared his returns to Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in his annual letters. The dealmaking prowess of Palihapitiya sparked comparisons that his Social Capital investment vehicle was essentially a baby Berkshire Hathaway. Even Palihapitiya himself, who has called Buffett an inspiration, compared his investment returns to the early returns of Berkshire Hathaway in his annual shareholder letters. Palihapitiya addressed the destruction in value seen across technology companies in Social Capital's 2022 investment letter.

☆ Companies That Went Public via SPACs Log Billions of Dollars in Goodwill Write-Downs
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Mark Maurer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Cryptocurrency platform Bakkt Holdings, which listed on the New York Stock Exchange in October 2021 after merging with a special-purpose acquisition company, recorded a $1.51 billion pretax goodwill impairment for the following year. Companies that went public through mergers with special-purpose acquisition companies in recent years booked billions of dollars in goodwill write-downs in 2022, reflecting in part a reckoning of the heady premiums paid to secure deals during the SPAC boom. Some of the biggest goodwill impairments in 2022 came from SPAC-backed companies like cryptocurrency platform Bakkt Holdings Inc., business-services provider Advantage Solutions Inc., 3-D printing firm Fathom Digital Manufacturing Corp., self-driving vehicle startup Aurora Innovation Inc. and now-bankrupt bitcoin miner Core Scientific Inc., according to financial and risk advisory firm Kroll LLC. Each of these five companies’ pretax impairments exceeded $1 billion last year.

☆ Here's what went wrong with Virgin Orbit
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( Michael Sheetz | In Michaeljsheetz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

The deal, facilitated by a so-called blank check company, gave Virgin Orbit a valuation of nearly $4 billion. That debt gives the flashy British billionaire first priority of Virgin Orbit assets in the event of the now-impending bankruptcy. And Chief Strategy Officer Jim Simpson had also spent more than eight years in Boeing's satellite division before joining Virgin Orbit. That frustration continued after the pause, with employees confused by the lack of specifics about which investors were speaking to Virgin Orbit leadership. Virgin Orbit

☆ US stocks could end this year 14% higher because banking turmoil will trigger a Fed pause, veteran investor Ed Yardeni says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( George Glover | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The S&P 500 could hit 4,600 points by the end of this year, according to Ed Yardeni. The veteran investor turmoil in the US banking sector to lead to the Federal Reserve pausing its rate hikes. "This banking crisis is going to be very well-contained," the veteran investor told CNBC on Wednesday. "And at the same time, I think it's going to keep the Fed from raising interest rates even further," he said. "We saw that last year with the meme stocks, with the SPACs, with the Ark stocks," he added.

☆ GameStop's surprise profit triggers short squeeze, meme stocks rally
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Medha Singh | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

AMC and GameStop were at the heart of a meme-stock frenzy in 2021 driven by small investors coordinating on social media. Among other highly shorted meme stocks, Koss Corp (KOSS.O) climbed 9.5%, Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY.O) reversed course to slip 1.3%, while the Roundhill MEME ETF (MEME.P) rose 4.2%. "Luckily, this go around is not due to meme investors, but an actual tangible fundamental event," said David Wagner, portfolio manager at Aptus Capital Advisors. SOURING SHORT BETSWhen there is a rush of demand from short sellers looking to exit their bearish bets amid a rise in a stock's price, it pushes prices even higher, resulting in a short squeeze. Another favorite among retail investors - Carvana Co (CVNA.N) - jumped 22% after the used-car retailer said it expects a smaller core loss in the current quarter.

☆ A 27-page report breaks down where the money is flowing in sports tech and the investors to watch. Here were 5 key takeaways.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ashley Rodriguez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Investment bank Drake Star broke down dealmaking in 2022 and what it means for the year ahead. Sports tech M&A activity in 2022, from Drake Star's Global Sports Tech Report 2022. Drake Star Global Sports Tech Report 2022The fourth quarter saw a surge in M&A volume with 67 deals, the most in the sector's recent history. More sports tech companies could explore public listings in the second half of the year. "Some of the IPO ready sports tech companies are expected to explore IPO/SPAC listings."

☆ SVB collapse is double-whammy for tech startups already navigating brutal market
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-19 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +11 min

He'd started the process six months earlier during a brutal period for tech stocks and a plunge in venture funding. Investors were just pulling in their horns, the SPAC market had fallen apart, valuations for tech companies were collapsing." In the absence of venture funding, money-losing startups have had to cut their burn rates in order to extend their cash runway. Since the beginning of 2022, roughly 1,500 tech companies have laid off a total of close to 300,000 people, according to the website Layoffs.fyi. Kruze Consulting provides accounting and other back-end services to hundreds of tech startups.

☆ Inside the opaque tech market where startup employees and early investors are trying to get rich now IPOs have collapsed and the VC party is over
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Startup employees and early investors tended to get rich at IPO or acquisition. That's the tough reality for startup employees and early investors as IPOs drop off and venture capital funding dries up. There's a glut of highly valued, late-stage private companies that should be debuting on stock exchanges in the next 12 to 36 months. Share options held by employees and investors can also come with an array of terms and conditions that make them harder to liquidate. "Investors are defending valuations that hurt employees – and companies long term – but help them raise their new funds.

☆ Michael Burry says he's not seeing 'true danger' in the aftermath of SVB collapse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Michael Burry, known for calling the subprime mortgage crisis, said Monday evening that he expects the unfolding banking crisis to be over soon without severe damage. I am not seeing true danger here," Burry said in a now-deleted tweet. The collapse over the past several days of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank — the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history — prompted extraordinary rescue action from regulators. In addition to backstopping the deposits at SVB and Signature Bank, federal regulators also announced an additional funding facility for troubled banks. Burry shot to fame by betting against mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 crisis.

☆ Where Paul Wick, seasoned tech stock investor, is raising his bets now
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-12 | by ( Sarah Min | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

So when a position opened up at the Seligman Communications and Information fund, the firm's then-chief investment officer asked Wick to take it over. Today, the Columbia Seligman Technology and Information fund (CCIZX) that Wick began running on New Year's Day in 1990, has $8.5 billion in assets under management. "It's really hard to guess how will the technology industry change in five years. By now, Wick has relationships going back decades in the tech industry. As of January, the Technology and Information fund held 2.96% of its assets in Bloom, up from 2.36% in October.

☆ Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has quietly stashed $90 billion into investments over the last 3 years
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Berkshire Hathaway's latest annual report illustrates that the company has deployed nearly $90 billion in investments since 2020. In 2020, Buffett and co. had spent a then-unprecedented $25 billion on stock buybacks, and set a new record of $27 billion in 2021. But even after all that, Berkshire still ended last year with $129 billion in cash and short-term investments. Fundstrat expects the stock market to see its strongest rally of the year soon. Avoiding a recession would actually be bad news for the stock market.

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