The following is an editorial by Alicja Grzadkowska, senior news editor at Insurance Business. To reach out to Alicja, email her at alicja.grzadkowska@keymedia.com.
Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), otherwise known as blank-check firms, have been making waves in the insurance industry lately. You may have seen several notable developments involving SPACs recently, like home insurance start-up Hippo agreeing to go public through a merger with Reinvent Technology Partners Z, online therapy app Talkspace planning to do the same with Hudson Executive Investment Corp., and ex-UniCredit SpA CEO Jean Pierre Mustier raising funds for his own SPAC.
Read more: Boom in blank check companies is overwhelming insurers
According to CNBC, SPACs are “one of the hottest trends on Wall Street,” with more than 200 SPACs going public in 2020 and raising approximately $84 billion in total funding. And this market is only getting hotter – as of March 2021, SPACs in the US had already topped 2020’s funding numbers, according to Forbes.
