2005-2008 SPAC IPO Investment Banking Underwriting League Tables

We've looked at SPAC law firms and we've looked at SPAC accounting firms. We recently even looked at investment banks and their SPAC backlog. Fee-starved investment banks are looking back with wistful eyes to the days of ought-seven and ought-six, so let's help them remember the good 'ol days, shall we?

SPAC IPO rankings follow for all investment banks that have priced at least two SPAC IPOs per year since 2005. Equal credit has been given to all banks on each deal, so you'll see popular co-manager firms like Ladenburg Thalmann and Maxim Group showing up at the top of the lists in later years. Many SPACs underwritten by larger banks like Citigroup, Banc of America, Deutsche Bank and Merrill Lynch enlisted these SPAC experts to help with deal execution.

Trends are obvious here: Bulge-bracket investment banks only begin to enter the picture in 2006, but by the end of 2007 are capturing greater numbers of larger deals, reinforcing the product's credibility with investors and the markets overall.

SPAC Backlog Investment Bank Rankings: Who Stands to Lose the Most in Fees?

On the heels of yesterday's post about SPAC S-1 filing activity, we figured that we should give you a sense of which banks are behind the current backlog of filed SPACs waiting to go public. It's who you'd expect, and we left out any banks that only have one SPAC on file because, well, who really cares. If the SPAC bubble truly has burst, Citigroup stands to lose almost $140 million in upfront fees if none of the 13 SPACs it currently has in registration are able to price.

Here's another fact we dug up: All the SPACs in registration represent almost $520 million in upfront fees alone to investment banks with over $1 billion in fees available to banks if deals get done.

The rankings of investment banks with SPACs on file follows with Citigroup, Ladenburg and Lazard taking the top three spots, with 35 SPACs between them.



This ranking does not include foreign issuer SPACs, and only includes SPACs currently available for pricing.

SPAC Rankings: Accounting Firm Beauty Contest

The bean counters have been counted! Here, without further ado, are the top ten SPAC accounting firms on blank check companies that have either gone public or are still in registration since 2004.

Goldstein Galub Kessler and Rothstein Kass trounce their nearest competitor, BDO Seidman, with a combined four times as many deals as BDO. They really ARE the best at auditing a shell company with zero hard assets, no operations, no revenues and $25,000 in the bank. Go CPAs!

Once again, if you don't trust our numbers, get thee to Edgar, dear readers.

Stay tuned for SPAC IPO underwriter rankings next week. We're gonna slice and dice 'em all sorts of ways.