Grab Holdings, Southeast Asia’s biggest ride hailing firm and food delivery, a Singapore based valuable start-up has signed up a merger with Altimeter Growth Corporation, a US based blank check company. This will lead to a public listing of Grab and an initial pro forma equity value of around $39.6 billion in the agreement.
Founded by Tan and Hooi Ling Tan in 2012, Grab began as a ride hailing company and expanded later on into other services such as grocery delivery, meal takeout, financial services and digital payments. This company terms itself the Superapp because of the customers coming for so many different services.
In public equity, a private investment of worth $4 billion have been made by investors like Temasek holdings, Blackrock, Fidelity International, in the biggest blank check deal so far. The merger had raised about $83 billion over the last year, and this year $99 billion by Shell firms so far. The one who are going to be benefited in this journey are China’s Didi Chuxing and Softbank Group Corp.
This deal would make it the largest SPAC merger ever. It is the attest milestone in the booming business of SPACs. SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company but they are often known as Blank check companies. Grab CEO Anthony Tan said that this gives them the immense pride to represent Southeast Asia in the global public markets. The CEO and founder of Altimeter, Brad Gerstner described Grab as one of the world’s fastest and largest growing companies. He also added that they are thrilled that Grab selected them as their partner to go public.
$4.5 billion will be provided to the Singapore based firm in cash proceeds by this deal. Shareholder approvals state that both the company’s boards have approved the proposed transactions and are expected to close in the coming months. Altimeter capital managed the offerings and includes $750 million from funds. Grab is drove to the list of public company as it had showed a strong financial performance last year, amidst the pandemic. Grab will become the most valuable Southeast Asian company to list shares in US by this merger.
