Economic Affairs

Getting ready for Spacs

Singapore's regulators and investors must be mindful of the risks and rewards of Wall Street's latest fad

ST ILLUSTRATION -MIEL
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Spacs, or "special purpose acquisition companies", might soon be coming to Singapore. The Singapore Exchange (SGX) is considering allowing some version of Wall Street's hottest investment product, which provides investors with an unusual route to taking stakes in innovative companies, to list in Singapore this year.

SGX is about to launch a public consultation exercise with financial industry players to assess the appetite for Spacs. It had done this in 2010, but at that time, the reaction was lukewarm. But as SGX chief executive Loh Boon Chye pointed out in an interview with Bloomberg last week, "the world has changed. Capital markets have evolved". So has the start-up economy in Singapore and the rest of South-east Asia.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 24, 2021, with the headline Getting ready for Spacs. Subscribe