The Singaporean giant VTC Grab should be valued at nearly 40 billion dollars on the occasion of its upcoming entry on Wall Street, a record for a "SPAC", this exotic technique of IPO now popular with companies.
Also read: Southeast Asian unicorns Gojek and Grab downsize
The group, which in 2018 bought the VTC activities of the American Uber in Southeast Asia, plans to merge with the investment fund Altimeter Capital Management, according to a press release published on Tuesday announcing an operation "
in the coming months
" .
This operation "
gives us immense pride in representing Southeast Asia on international markets
," said Anthony Tan, co-founder and CEO of Grab, quoted in the press release.
The IPO will take place on the US Nasdaq stock exchange, under the symbol “
GRAB
”.
If completed, it will be, with a valuation of $ 39.6 billion (33.2 billion euros) according to Grab, the largest IPO ever conducted via the now very popular financial mechanism of “
SPAC
” (Special Purpose Acquisition Company).
For the company which is just starting out on the market, it is a question of merging with a company acting as an empty shell, already listed and whose aim is to facilitate stock market introductions.
WeWork and Jay-Z
The PSPC market is booming on Wall Street, where many companies favor this access route, which is faster and less expensive than a traditional IPO.
A record amount of $ 99 billion was raised through 306 merger transactions this year, according to statistics from SPAC Research data, after an already historic 2020 on this front.
The latest giant to announce an entry on Wall Street via a SPAC at the end of March, WeWork will merge with the company BowX Acquisition Corp in a transaction valuing it at $ 9 billion and allowing it to recover $ 1.3 billion in money fresh.
Successful entrepreneurs or personalities (known as “
sponsors
”), like rapper Jay-Z or former basketball star Shaquille O'Neal in the United States, also generally associate their names with the SPAC. , contributing to their publicity.
This enthusiasm was not without consequences on the transparency of certain operations, and the American financial policeman (SEC) announced on Monday its intention to review some of them.
Founded in 2011, Grab operates in Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The company, which offers in addition to the services of VTC the delivery of meals and groceries, was worth about 15 billion dollars in October 2019, according to the specialized site Pitchbook.
Read also: The Grab platform will invest $ 500 million to develop in Vietnam
Grab's IPO will also allow it to have $ 4.5 billion in new money, he said on Tuesday, through an operation that will see the giants Blackrock and Fidelity International participate, as well as the Abu Dhabi Mubadala investment fund, and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
Grab's investors include Japanese company Softbank, as well as automakers Toyota and Hyundai.
