Editorial Board
Investors in SPACs Need to Know the Real Deal
If they still want to buy, so be it.
They’re lucrative for Wall Street. For their investors, not so much.
Photographer: Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesIt’s hard to believe anyone would pay $10 for $7 worth of a company’s shares. Yet that’s roughly what a lot of investors have been doing, by participating in a financial innovation known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
People have every right to give away their money. But the government — specifically, the Securities and Exchange Commission — ought to ensure that they have at least an inkling of what they’re doing.