Dubai financial and investment advisory company Arrow Capital co-sponsored the listing of a $240 million special-purpose acquisition company, or Spac, to pursue merger opportunities in the technology sector.
The public float of Tribe Capital Growth Corp I, which listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York last Thursday, was carried out in partnership with US venture capital firm Tribe Capital.
The Spac, or blank-cheque company, will give Arrow’s Middle East and South-East Asia investors greater access to opportunities in Silicon Valley companies and help them diversify their portfolios.
The blank-cheque company is seeking targets that show “inflection points in their growth trajectory”.
“The Spac, and our collaboration with Tribe, is a major milestone for our business and our investors,” said Arrow Capital founder and chief executive Rohit Nanani.
“In Tribe, we have a trusted partner right at the heart of Silicon Valley’s innovative technology ecosystem. We are very excited to be able to extend their expertise and insights to our network of investors in the region.”
Arrow Capital's headquarters is at the Dubai International Financial Centre and it has offices in Mauritius.
Spacs are listed companies without revenue-generating commercial operations. They are often formed to merge with private ventures seeking to go public.
The process is quicker and less costly than an initial public offering. A company that goes public by merging with a Spac also does not need to provide a prospectus.
Private ventures traditionally rely on venture capital or strategic investment for financing.
However, the growing popularity of Spacs has expanded their financing options.
The investment flows of blank-cheque companies, which first appeared in the 1990s, have grown 10-fold since 2019, with globally recognised investors such as SoftBank Group unveiling their own Spacs to invest in technology start-ups.
About 248 Spacs raised more than $83 billion last year alone, according to Bloomberg data. As of last Thursday, there were 210 blank-cheque company listings that had raised $68bn.
Listings through Spacs is becoming popular across the Middle East.
Last week, Anghami, Spotify's music-streaming rival in the Arab world, revealed plans to list on the Nasdaq after a merger with a blank-cheque company.
The successful completion of the deal with Vitas Media Acquisition Company will make Anghami the first technology company from the region to list in New York. The deal valued Anghami at $220m.
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund-backed Lucid Motors also announced it will go public by merging with Churchill Capital IV Corporation Spac.
Arrow Capital said there were significant opportunities and economies of scale for technology investors in the Middle East.
Tribe co-founder Arjun Sethi said the Middle East had fast become an increasingly attractive marketplace.
“The region’s commitment to technology innovation, [the growing] community of entrepreneurs and infrastructure development have made it a hub for global trade and investment, and a valuable conduit into emerging markets.”
Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
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The National Archives, Abu Dhabi
Founded over 50 years ago, the National Archives collects valuable historical material relating to the UAE, and is the oldest and richest archive relating to the Arabian Gulf.
Much of the material can be viewed on line at the Arabian Gulf Digital Archive - https://www.agda.ae/en
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Skoda Superb Specs
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It's Monty Python's Crashing Rocket Circus
To the theme tune of the famous zany British comedy TV show, SpaceX has shown exactly what can go wrong when you try to land a rocket.
The two minute video posted on YouTube is a compilation of crashes and explosion as the company, created by billionaire Elon Musk, refined the technique of reusable space flight.
SpaceX is able to land its rockets on land once they have completed the first stage of their mission, and is able to resuse them multiple times - a first for space flight.
But as the video, How Not to Land an Orbital Rocket Booster, demonstrates, it was a case if you fail, try and try again.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
