Lazard Ltd Shs A LAZ

We believe that special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, are a net positive to industrywide investment banking revenue. We estimate that the three SPAC-related investment banking fees—initial SPAC underwriting, private investment in public equity placement fees, and acquisition advisory fees—for a relatively large SPAC worth $1 billion can be as much as 50% higher than the traditional IPO underwriting fee for bringing a private company public. For an average SPAC of around $300 million, we estimate investment banks will earn about as much SPAC-related revenue as they would from a traditional initial public offering process. In aggregate, we estimate that there's $17 billion-$20 billion of investment banking revenue related to the $200 billion of SPAC capital raised over the previous two years.