With an empty corporate shell: Rocket Internet is heading for the New York Stock Exchange

With an empty corporate shell
Rocket Internet is heading for the New York Stock Exchange

Only at the end of last year did the investor Rocket Internet bid farewell to the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The reason: There are more attractive financing options away from the floor. Now they want to collect money with the help of a shell company, sift through start-ups and heave one of them onto the New York Stock Exchange.

The Berlin start-up investor Rocket Internet wants to search for new candidates on the stock exchange with an empty company shell listed on the stock exchange. The Cayman Islands-based Rocket Internet Growth Opportunities filed the prospectus for an IPO in New York with the US market regulator SEC that night. The shell company SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) wants to raise up to 287.5 million dollars from investors by issuing shares for ten dollars each.

After the IPO, Rocket Internet holds 20 percent of the shares in the SPAC, where Rocket boss Oliver Samwer is chairman of the board of directors. The company is managed by Rocket board member Soheil Mirpour. Citigroup is accompanying the IPO. Rocket Internet Growth Opportunities will then have 24 months to find a company that can move under its roof and go public that way.

Samwer envisions a technology company, preferably outside the USA, that will benefit from the digitization boom and is at least on the way to black numbers. This could include internet marketplaces, e-commerce companies, fintechs or technology start-ups from the healthcare industry. Rocket is not bound by this as long as the shareholders ultimately approve the takeover.

Samwer is jumping on a new trend a few months after Rocket Internet's withdrawal from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, which was much criticized by shareholders. As recently as autumn, the company had said goodbye by saying that there were increasingly attractive financing options for young companies outside of the stock exchange – at lower costs. SPAC IPOs are very fashionable in the US and open up shortcuts to the capital market for many companies.

In Germany, too, the first initiators of such trading jackets are getting into position. According to insiders, the Swiss venture capitalist Lakestar is working on a SPAC IPO in Frankfurt. In the prospectus, Rockets SPAC expressly refers to Rocket Internet's experience in developing start-ups into stock market candidates. Of the investor's investments, HelloFresh, Delivery Hero, Zalando, Westwing and the Global Fashion Group have made it onto the stock exchange. Most of these investments have long since been sold and gave Rocket a large cushion of capital.

. (tagsToTranslate) Economy (t) Rocket Internet (t) New York (t) IPOs (t) Start-ups