SPACs resemble venture investments more than regular stocks.

Only 7% of SPAC mergers have a positive return. And one of those is thanks to Softbank!

By Pranshu Maheshwari

Between 2021 and 2023, 358 SPACs merged with a target company. Their stock performance hasn't been great! The median SPAC has an annualized return of -26%.

De-SPAC down?

Annualized return since SPAC Merger

Data from Spactrack.io, visualized using Yarn

In contrast, an investment in the S&P 500 would have an annualized return between -5% and 15%, depending on exactly when you made the investment.

The return profile of these SPACs looks a lot more like what you'd expect from a VC investment.

Only 3 of the companies beat the S&P 500.

  • MoonLake Therapeutics (MLTX), a biotech firm which surged after announcing positive results from a clinical trial.
  • VinFast Auto (VFS), which probably shouldn't be in this dataset since it just IPO'd two weeks ago, and is currently as volatile as a meme stock on adrenalin.
  • Symbotic (SYM), which surged after announcing a joint venture with Softbank (I find this very amusing)

You wouldn't invest in an overvalued growth round, a voice says in my head, sounding eerily like those anti-piracy preuldes on DVDs. So why would you invest in a SPAC?

This visual data story was built with Yarn.