- Elliott Management is in talks with banks to raise $1 billion to create a blank-check company, WSJ said.
- Founder Paul Singer has been notably absent from the SPAC boom until now.
- Elliott could use the proceeds to buy a sizable company worth double-digit billions, according to WSJ.
US hedge fund Elliott Management, known for its activist leaning, has been meeting with bankers to raise more than $1 billion to create a special-purpose acquisition company, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The process is in early stages and plans could still change, the Journal said.
Billionaire Paul Singer's 44-year-old firm could use the funds to buy a company worth double-digit billions based on the targets with which similarly sized SPACs have joined forces, according to the report. It isn't clear which industries Elliott is seeking to target.
Many hedge fund competitors have already raised their own blank-check firms, and until now Singer's absence from the SPAC boom had been conspicuous.
Elliott did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Once considered an alternative investment vehicle, the SPAC phenomenon blew up last year when the pandemic radically changed the traditional route of listing on the stock market. 259 such companies raised $83 billion in 2020, while 118 SPACs have raised $35 billion in the first few weeks of 2021 so far, according to data from SPAC Insider.
In response to Elliott's intent to join the SPAC craze, economist Mohamed El-Erian tweeted: "It's increasingly as if you are a nobody in investment management unless you have SPACs. I wonder if this will prove yet another one of those innovations that goes way too far initially."
The New York-based fund, which manages assets worth over $45 billion, has pushed for big changes at Twitter, SoftBank, and AT&T among others.