The Italian Spacs Regulatory Regime: An Empirical Analysis of Aim Italia Spacs

This Article firstly examines the regulatory landscape, particularly company law and securities regulation, that defines the incentive structure for a sample of 24 AIM Italia SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies) from 2011 to 2023. Our research secondly poses three empirical questions concerning the degree of participation by institutional versus retail investors in the secondary market of Italian AIM SPACs, the scale of their cost structure, and the long-term share price performance (over one, two, and three-year periods) of entities following the business combination from the effective merger date. Our findings reveal that retail investors, though excluded from SPAC IPOs, are actively engaged in SPAC share trading on the secondary market, but less so in warrant trading. The cost structure yields a net cash per share with an effective average of 8.26 Euro and effective median of 8.51 Euro, making AIM Italia SPACs less expensive than their U.S. counterparts. The long-term performance surpasses that of the U.S. SPACs. This Article then attempts to explain the results from a regulatory perspective and concludes with brief policy considerations.