Lawrence Ho’s Black Spade SPAC Files for Listing on the HKEX

A special-purpose acquisition company controlled by Melco Resorts & Entertainment boss Lawrence Ho has filed a preliminary prospectus for a listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange after the bourse’s first-ever SPAC got off to a shaky trading start last week.

Black Spade Capital, the private investment vehicle owned by the son of late casino tycoon Stanley Ho, is launching Black Spade Asia Acquisition as a blank-cheque company to seek targets in Greater China that will benefit from the management team’s experience in the entertainment, lifestyle and healthcare sectors, according to the Sunday filing.

Black Spade has enlisted Bank of China unit BOCHK Asset Management as co-promoter of the SPAC, which must announce the terms of its acquisition within 24 months of its HKEX listing and complete the transaction within 36 months. Swiss banking giant UBS is the sole sponsor of the vehicle.

The announcement by the scion of the family behind developer Shun Tak Holdings follows last Friday’s trading debut of Aquila Acquisition, with shares in the SPAC backed by China Merchants Bank International Asset Management falling 3.2 percent in their maiden session.

Team’s Familiar Ring

The senior management and board of Black Spade Asia Acquisition track closely with the directors of Ho’s NYSE-listed Black Spade Acquisition, which raised $169 million in an IPO last year.

The Hong Kong-listed SPAC will be chaired by co-CEO Dennis Tam, who currently serves as chairman and co-CEO of Black Spade Acquisition and as president and CEO of Black Spade Capital. Tam previously spent 11 years as group finance director of Melco International Development, the HKEX-listed parent of NASDAQ-traded Melco Resorts & Entertainment.

The SPAC’s other top leaders will include co-CEO Kester Ng, a former JP Morgan banker who now serves as chief executive of Hong Kong-based GRE Investment Advisors, and chief financial officer Francis Ng, who is the managing director and chief investment officer of Pacific Aegis Capital Management in the city.

The vehicle’s independent non-executive directors will include Robert Moore, a former executive of Walt Disney Studios and Paramount Pictures who now runs an e-sports organisation, and Patsy Chan, the chief operating officer for Singapore at wholesaler Richemont Luxury Group.

All of the above-named executives and board members perform similar roles for Black Spade Acquisition, an entertainment-focused SPAC.

Shaking Off the Flops

The advantage of a SPAC to investors is that the IPO proceeds are held in trust and are returned to the shareholders if the SPAC fails to complete a merger or acquisition within a certain window.

Despite increasing regulatory scrutiny — and some high-profile flops like Singapore’s Grab Holdings and US-based WeWork — SPACs have remained popular as a way to bypass the traditional IPO process and quickly gain access to public capital markets. Last year saw 602 SPAC IPOs raise $160 billion, shattering 2020’s record $83.3 billion and up an order of magnitude from the $13.6 billion reaped in 2019.

Singapore-based PropertyGuru began trading on the New York Stock Exchange last week after being acquired by Bridgetown 2 Holdings, a SPAC backed by billionaires Richard Li and Peter Thiel. Shares of the Southeast Asia-focused real estate listings firm tumbled 14 percent to $8.60 on Friday, PropertyGuru’s first day of trading as a combined company.

Also getting into the SPAC act are two companies backed by Singapore state holding firm Temasek. Tikehau Capital, a Paris-based firm that counts Temasek as a shareholder, plans to raise S$128 million ($94 million) with a SPAC called Pegasus Asia, possibly targeting a property technology business. Temasek venture capital arm Vertex Venture Holdings, meanwhile, plans to raise S$170 million or more and seek a business with a core technology focus.

Adrian Cheng, chief executive of Hong Kong’s New World Development, last week announced plans for an HKEX-listed SPAC after his NASDAQ-quoted Artisan Acquisition Corp reached an agreement last year to merge with health diagnostics firm Prenetics.