Chamath Palihapitiya
Olivia Michael | CNBC
Billionaire investor and so-called SPAC King Chamath Palihapitiya mentioned the zero rates of interest the Federal Reserve allowed to persist for years created the “perverted” market circumstances he benefited from on the peak of the pandemic.
Speaking with Axios’ Dan Primack at an occasion on Wednesday, Palihapitiya defined what he felt contributed to the speedy rise and collapse of the SPAC market, the shorthand for particular goal acquisition corporations, which created a method for younger corporations to go public with out a few of the typical IPO hurdles. SPACs, which grew in reputation within the first two years of the pandemic, have seen a reset amid financial and regulatory headwinds. Still, there are greater than 450 offers in the marketplace for a merger goal forward of 2023 deadlines, in line with SPAC Research.
The former Facebook government and CEO of Social Capital has helped a number of corporations go public by way of SPAC, together with Virgin Galactic, from which he later offered his private stake earlier than stepping down from the board. Earlier this month he closed two SPACs after failing to search out merger targets in time.
“We are learning what went wrong, which is that we had a decade-plus of zero interest rates,” Palihapitiya mentioned of the market. “That is what fundamentally was wrong. It perverted the market. It distorted reality. It allowed manias and asset bubbles to build in every single part of the economy.”
Low rates of interest imply decrease returns on financial savings accounts, which may encourage extra spending within the economic system, which generally is a boon for high-growth property.
Palihapitiya mentioned the “free money” given by the central financial institution resulted in a “misallocation of risk,” which led many individuals to misprice the danger of their investments.
Still, Palihapitiya pushed again on the concept that SPACs have been hit tougher than different property, together with tech shares.
“When you provide free money into a system, manias will build and these manias are broad-based,” he mentioned. “And now that we’ve taken money out of the system, these manias will end, and you will find the market-clearing price for a lot of securities. And I think that that’s a healthy process. But I think it’s unfair to just look at one asset class.”
Now that rates of interest are rising once more, Palihapitiya mentioned, “The biggest thing that I learned was how much of my early success was probably not attributable to myself. So on the same way that I sort of blame Jay Powell for zero interest rates, I think I massively benefitted from Powell, and Bernanke and Janet Yellen before,” he mentioned, referencing previous Fed chairs.
“We have actually had a massive tailwind because we had a zero interest rate environment that allowed us to raise unbelievable amounts of money from investors who frankly had very few other alternatives because interest rates were zero,” he mentioned. “And what it allowed us to do was crowd into companies. Many of those companies had unbelievable valuations. Eventually these unprofitable businesses went public and only now are we starting to sort out what are good and what are not so good businesses.”
-CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.
Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.
WATCH: Chamath Palihapitiya unwinds two SPACs, cites excessive valuations and market volatility
Source: www.cnbc.com”