Chamath Palihapitiya, backer of the Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. special-purpose acquisition corporations, or SPACs, said Tuesday he is winding down the two vehicles numbered IV and VI after failing to find a target company to acquire within the given time frame. In a regulatory filing, Palihapitiya, known as the ‘SPAC King’ for the number of vehicles he has launched, said he and his team evaluated more than 100 target companies, and “while we came close to doing a deal several times, we ultimately walked away each time for a couple of reasons.” These included valuation and volatility, when they met with resistance from management teams who didn’t want to face public markets in a period of high volatility. After failing to find a target before an October 14 deadline, the blank-check companies will be wound down and the funds will be returned to their shareholders. Palihapitiya said he was proud of the companies he did bring to public markets, including Virgin Galactic , Opendoor , Clover Health , SoFi , ProKidney , and Akili . The investor said he would continue to foucs on early-stage companies with SPACs just one of many tools in his toolkit.
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