Tag - AMV

Some weeks, it seems like there is only one sector in the entire U.S. financial services business that is in demand: initial public offerings of special purpose acquisition companies. These are the blank-check deals in which investors give a management team money in hopes that they will make a good acquisition with it. If within two years they don’t, they need to return the funds, which create fewer expenses incurred between the IPO and the disbanding of the company. Even without an operating business, the SPAC has to pay rent, hire auditors and retain people to investigate potential acquisition opportunities. There’s a real opportunity cost to making a SPAC investment.

On the other hand, a SPAC transaction lets a company go public without the hassle of a road show or scrutiny from IPO buyers, something that many executives find demeaning. For that matter, it lets a company go public, which is no easy matter these days. Good companies will continue to want access to public markets, and restructuring companies will have divisions that they want to sell off. SPACs may make it possible for a handful of companies to get public capital in the next year.

Many SPACs have come public in recent months, but only a few have had deals to announce yet. One of the most recent was the March 13, 2008 announcement of the acquisition of Halcyon Asset Management, a hedge fund manager, by Alternative Asset Management Acquisition Corp. (AMEX:AMV), a SPAC that came public in August 2007. Alternative Asset Management will pay $505 million in cash and notes (more or less its entire net worth) for a 44% stake in Halcyon.

On March 7, Negevtech, an Israeli company that makes test equipment used to inspect semiconductor wafers for defects, announced that it would go public through a merger with . . .

The Russell 2000 (NYSE: IWM) and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (INDU) are higher on news of higher-than-expected U.S. retail sales in July.

At 10:06 a.m. ET the Russell 2000 had added 8.66 points, or 1.10%, to 797.44. The Dow had added 68.12 points, or 0.51%, to 13,307.66.

Retail sales in July added 0.3% to a seasonally adjusted $376.1 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported this morning. That’s above the projected increase of. 0.2% and an improvement over June’s drop of 0.7%.

The increase was evident in almost all categories except sales of automobiles and car parts, which declined 0.2%. Excluding autos, retail sales expanded 0.4%.

On a year-over-year basis, retail sales in July were up 3.2% compared with the same month on 2006. The only categories posting a decline were sales of building materials and gardening supplies, as well as department store sales.

Elsewhere, the European Central Bank announced that it has injected $65 billion into money markets to boost liquidity, its third consecutive business day of interventions.
Motivated by similar concerns, the Bank of Japan announced that it has added $5.1 billion, while South Korea’s finance ministry said that it is ready to supplant funds if necessary.

The following are the most actively traded company's with market capitalizations under $500 million: