LatAm Logistics Firm to Go Public Via SPAC at $578 Million Value

• Firm operates 28 facilities in Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru
• Blank-check deals remain down but are regaining ground

LatAm Logistic Properties, which owns and operates distribution warehouses in Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru, has agreed to go public in the US via a blank-check company in a deal that will value the combined business at about $578 million including debt.

The company, based in San Jose, Costa Rica, and known as LLP, is the only vertically integrated logistics real estate platform doing business in multiple Central and South American countries, Chief Executive Officer Esteban Saldarriaga said in an interview. The company’s portfolio includes 28 facilities totaling 4.8 million square feet with tenants such as Kraft Heinz Co., DHL Group and Ikea.

Saldarriaga, who will be CEO of the merged company, said the transaction will provide access to a “deep pool of institutional capital” to fuel expansion in its current markets and possibly elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean. It will also position LLP to make acquisitions to take advantage of growing demand in the region and reduce its overall cost of capital.

“We’re definitely seeing that bigger multinational names are growing and expanding in the region and — these larger formats — institutional high quality is crucial for them,” said Saldarriaga, who has worked with Grupo Gloria and JPMorgan Chase & Co. “It’s an under-served, under-supplied corner of the market, not only for our business but from an institutional investment landscape.”

The transaction is one of a handful by special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, that are going ahead in the wake of the surge and then crash in the market for blank-check companies. While many SPACs created during the boom have been shut by their sponsors, there are signs that those that remain are picking up some momentum.

Like the market for initial public offerings, SPAC transactions this year have favored companies with established revenue streams, such as Pinstripes Inc., the restaurant chain combining bowling and bocce with Italian fare that agreed in June to a deal with a pro forma enterprise value of about $520 million.

In one of the largest SPAC deals of the year, Spanish football’s FC Barcelona agreed to list its content creation unit Barca Media in the US via a SPAC merger that values the combined entity at $1 billion, according to a statement last week. Vietnam-based electric-vehicle maker VinFast Auto Ltd. plans to start trading on the Nasdaq on Tuesday after following a transaction valuing the company at about $23 billion.

Though a small slice of the world’s $1.2 trillion worth of mergers and acquisitions this year, deals in Latin America and the Caribbean have fallen only 25% this year compared with the 39% drop globally and 37% in the US, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Two, the name of the SPAC acquiring LLP, raised $214 million in its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange in March 2021. The SPAC in turn was acquired this past March and Thomas Hennessy, who has led other SPAC transactions including the deal that created Appreciate Holdings Inc. last year, became chairman and CEO of Two. Other SPACs in which he has been involved include the one merging with industry-focuses wind power provider One Energy Enterprises, a transaction reported Monday by Bloomberg News.

View original content: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-15/latam-logistic-firm-to-go-public-via-spac-at-578-million-value

Released August 15, 2023