Chardan Capital Markets LLC has played a number of roles in the SPAC sector, as Guy Barudin describes on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast.

Unlike other investment banks that have been content with collecting fees while underwriting IPOs, New York-based Chardan has sponsored a dozen SPACs, acted as a placement agent for related PIPEs and advised both sponsors and target companies. Barudin, a managing director at Chardan, discussed that work on the podcast.

Barudin also contended that observers who have declared the SPAC market dead haven’t done their homework. Critics have carped about the high rates of liquidations by sponsors unable to find proper target companies, but Barudin said those liquidations are evidence of a functional market.

“If you look at 2020 and 2021, half of those SPACs were liquidated,” he said. “That’s how the product should have worked.”

Listen to the podcast with Guy Barudin below:

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