Usha Rodrigues
Usha Rodrigues, a professor in the School of Law, was recently quoted in a Georgia Public Broadcasting article about the rise of SPACs—special purpose acquisition companies.
For the past 20 years, SPACs have been on the fringes of the financial universe.
“They have this sort of shady origin story,” Rodrigues said.
The SPACs of today are descendants from the “blank-check corporations” of the ’80s. These “really had a bad reputation,” Rodrigues said.
However, the popularity of SPACs is on the rise. The article distinguishes between today’s SPACs and the fraudulent blank-check companies from the 1980s. Today’s SPACs are much safer, but the same quick and efficient process that’s appealing to founders could potentially increase the risks for investors, Rodrigues said.
“The flip side of making things easier for companies is inevitably that the risk of fraud to investors goes up,” she said. “I don’t know any way to square that circle.”
