Schalast | IPO / SPAC

If a law firm has existed for over 25 years, then it has experienced boom times, but also survived some economic crises. In the 1990s, a stock exchange segment emulating NASDAQ called Neuer Markt flourished in Germany There, many business models were hyped, which did not write black numbers in the IPO.

During this time, Schalast was mainly active in the field of broadband cable and aviation, and that’s how it earned money back then. Nonetheless, the first IPO we supported in 1999, SMATcom, was canceled shortly before the magic bell rang. The business model worked anyway and the group is now part of PYÜR. In the late 2000s, after JUVE, we were one of the leading law firms for IPOs in the Neuer Markt. But after the financial and euro crisis starting in 2008/2009, IPOs in Germany were rather difficult.

Completely surprisingly, this has now changed during the pandemic, in the second quarter of 2020 it was already indicated, but now, in the first half of 2021, it’s becoming evident: Germany is also an attractive stock exchange for German business models and German unicorns, you don't always have to look to New York, London or Southeast Asia. It is almost even more exciting that in this slipstream a megatrend from the USA, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC), also known as shell companies, suddenly materialized here, too. There were almost 300 such IPOs in the USA in 2020, and there is now even talk of a bubble. It is all the more surprising that this wave has timidly spilled over to Germany and Europe (especially Amsterdam).

It’s good for us that in this situation with Dr. Thorsten Voss mid-2020 (press release) we took a BaFin-savvy prospectus expert on board and at the beginning of 2021 with Dr. Matthias Geurts (press release) one of the inventors of the German SPACs. SPACs can do a lot more than generally thought: They can be a vehicle for SME financing, be an alternative to venture capital for startups, work in the double-digit million range and also work with German structures. We have already written a lot about this (Börsen Zeitung) and developed further ideas.

Let's assemble a SPAC together!