By Manya Saini
(Reuters) -Teamshares, a buyer of small- to medium-sized enterprises, said on Friday it would go public in the U.S. through a $746 million blank-check deal with Live Oak Acquisition Corp
backed by accounts advised by investment giant T. Rowe Price.
Special purpose acquisition deals have made a comeback on Wall Street in 2025 after years of muted activity, with several marquee investors and financial firms once again turning to this alternative route to the public markets.
Teamshares acquires small and medium-sized enterprises using its tech platform and describes itself as a part financial technology firm and part holding company. Its subsidies have generated consolidated revenues of more than $400 million across 40 industries and 30 states.
"About 3 million companies have owners aged 55+ and likely need to sell over the next decade, given family succession has become rare," Co-founder and CEO Michael Brown told Reuters.
The deal is expected to generate up to $333 million in proceeds, which includes a $126 million private investment in public equity anchored by T. Rowe Price with participation from other institutional investors and cash held in the SPAC's trust account.
A SPAC is a shell company that raises money through an IPO to merge with a private business, allowing it to go public without a traditional IPO.
"The data we’ve seen around stock price performance for deSPACs with at least $25 million of EBITDA is about the same performance as conventional IPOs, so if you can predictably grow earnings, the SPAC is a great way to go public," Brown said.
DeSPAC refers to the completion of a SPAC merger, through which the target becomes publicly listed.
Teamshares' existing investors include Khosla Ventures, Inspired Capital and Spark Capital. After the deal closes, the combined company will operate as "Teamshares Inc" and is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "TMS."
"The combination allows us to keep reinvesting in more acquisitions and to continually develop our tech platform, both of which drive Teamshares' flywheel," Brown said.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
