SPAC

This is a kind of shell company.  It produces nothing and does nothing. Its sole function is to raise money on the stock exchange in order to acquire a private company, usually within a limited time frame, which has the effect of making the private company a public company without going through the usual process of an initial public offering (IPO).  The acronym stands for special-purpose acquisition company.   It provides  the private company with a backdoor entry to the stock exchange.  There are Chinese companies that are considering this approach since the government has shown that it disapproves of them listing on the US stock exchange.

 As it stands SPACs are not allowed on the Australian Stock Exchange which is opposed to shell companies. Probably the memory of the bottom-of-the-harbour schemes still lingers.  However, private companies in Australia could well be the target of SPACS and then they will have to consider the benefits and downside of the SPAC versus the IPO.