Blank check companies face pressures

The last two years, blank check companies were all the rage. A slew of them went public amid a lot of good publicity. But a lot of them have struggled to find a good company with which to merge and many face deadlines to find a deal acceptable to shareholders. The alternative is to liquidate, which most would not prefer. By one measure, 15 so-called special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) need to wrap up a deal within the next nine months. So the pressure is on, at a time when trading publicly is still a bit out of vogue for small companies. We may see a cooling of this trend if deals aren't lined up. At least one has already lined up an extension, and you can bet others are thinking about it.

For more:
- here's an article from Investment Dealers' Digest (For FierceFinance readers)