U.S.-Israeli fintech Pagaya to go public via $8.5 billion SPAC deal

[September 15, 2021]  (Reuters) -U.S.-Israeli fintech Pagaya on Wednesday agreed to go public through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company EJF Acquisition Corp in a deal with an enterprise value of $8.5 billion.

The deal will include a $200 million private investment in public equity, or PIPE, according to a presentation https://www.ejfacquisition.com/Pagaya-Investor-Presentation-September-2021 that did not disclose the name of the investors.

Founded in 2016, Pagaya manages assets for banks, insurance companies, pensions funds, asset managers, and sovereign wealth funds using artificial intelligence.

The fintech, led by co-founder and former UBS executive Gal Krubiner, earns a majority of its revenue from fees generated by institutional investors making purchases of products enabled by its AI network.

It last year raised https://reut.rs/3Ad8vOb $102 million in a private funding round led by Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC. Other investors in the round included insurer Aflac Inc's Aflac Global Ventures, Bank Hapoalim's Poalim Capital Markets, Viola and Harvey Golub - the former CEO of American Express.

The deal comes as activity slows in the blank-check space due to growing investor caution and deepening regulatory scrutiny.

SPACs like EJF Acquisition are publicly listed investment vehicles with no business operations. They are raised with the purpose of merging with a private company at a later date, to take it public by sidestepping a traditional IPO.

(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain, Sohini Podder and Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich and Aditya Soni)

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