来源：《华盛顿邮报》
日期：2021年3月19日
An important but underrated function of the Securities and Exchange Commission is to advise the public regarding new risks in the financial markets. The most recent of these “Investor Alerts and Bulletins,” issued March 10, addressed the speculative boom in so-called special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Indeed, it was the second SPAC-related notice from the SEC in the past four months. Given what’s been occurring in the financial markets lately, it’s good that the commission is on the case.
证券交易委员会(SEC)的一项重要但被低估的职能是就金融市场的新风险向公众提供建议。3月10日发布的最新一份“投资者警报和公告”，涉及了所谓特殊目的收购公司(简称SPACs)的投机热潮。事实上，这是SEC在过去4个月里第二次发出与SPACs相关的通知。考虑到最近金融市场上发生的事情，SEC着手调查这件事是好事。
Little known until the past two years or so, SPACs are basically shell companies that raise capital in an initial public offering and then use that capital to merge with a start-up company, usually within two years. For the merger target, this is a speedier, less regulated alternative to going public on its own. In particular, start-ups can pitch investors optimistic narratives equivalent to the “forward-looking statements” that might otherwise be prohibited. For the SPAC sponsors, the attraction is a huge payoff. SPACs are rapidly replacing “traditional” IPOs; the $166 billion in SPAC-led deals announced in the first quarter of 2021 exceeds the total for all of 2020, according to recent press reports.
直到差不多两年前，SPACs还鲜为人知，它们基本上是通过首次公开发行（IPO）筹集资金的空壳公司，然后用这些资金与一家初创公司合并，并购通常在两年内完成。对于并购目标公司来说，这是一种比自己上市更快、监管更少的选择。特别是，初创企业可以向投资者兜售与“前瞻性声明”类似的乐观叙事，如果选择IPO，可能会禁止这样的声明。对于SPACs的发起人来说，吸引力就是巨大的回报。SPACs正在迅速取代“传统”IPO；根据最近的新闻报道，2021年第一季度，SPACs主导的IPO规模达到1660亿美元，超过了2020年全年的总额。
Retail investors — i.e., ordinary people risking their rent money and retirement funds — can buy shares in SPACs, too. And many do, dreaming of making the kind of killing previously reserved for early IPO investors. DraftKings, a fantasy sports company, is probably the best example of a company that successfully went public via a SPAC. More recently, however, investors in electric-truck company Nikola lost money when short seller Hindenburg Research exposed weaknesses in the company, which had remained hidden as it went public through a SPAC.
散户投资者——也就是拿着房租和退休基金冒险的普通人——也可以购买SPACs的股票。许多人的确是这样做的，他们梦想着能像早期IPO投资者那样大捞一笔。实况体育游戏公司DraftKings可能是通过SPAC成功上市的公司中最好的例子。然而，最近，电动卡车公司尼古拉(Nikola)的投资者亏了钱，空头德国博世置评机构暴露了该公司的弱点，而在该公司通过SPAC上市时，这些弱点一直被隐藏。
Given SPACs’ novelty, it’s harder than usual for ordinary investors to understand what the SEC called the “distinct risks” of investing in them, which are complex but boil down to the fact that everything depends on the sponsors. Unless the merger target they choose has a truly profitable future, as opposed to one of the many start-ups with a “story” and not much else, the regular people who buy into it will lose. And yet the incentives for sponsors are to merge quickly with a company — any company. To generate trust, SPAC sponsors are joining forces with celebrities ranging from former House speaker Paul D. Ryan to social-justice activist Colin Kaepernick to entertainer Ciara Wilson. Don’t be dazzled, the SEC warned on March 10: “It is never a good idea to invest in a SPAC just because someone famous sponsors or invests in it or says it is a good investment.”
鉴于SPACs的新颖性，普通投资者比以往更难理解美国证券交易委员会(SEC)所说的投资SPACs的“明显风险”。这些风险很复杂，但归根结底，一切都取决于发起人。除非他们选择的合并目标有一个真正有利可图的未来，而不是像许多初创企业那样，只有一个“故事”，没有太多其他东西，否则，买入该公司股票的普通人将会亏损。然而，发起人的动机是迅速与一家公司合并——任何一家公司。为了获得信任，SPACs发起人正在与包括前众议院议长保罗·d·瑞安、社会正义活动家科林·卡佩尼克和艺人西亚拉·威尔逊在内的名人联手。SEC在3月10日警告称，不要被迷惑：“仅仅因为某位名人发起或投资了某个SPAC，或表示某个SPAC是项不错的投资，就投资于SPAC，是不会得到好结果的。”