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A $15 billion SPAC deal involving Apollo Global Management and Vista Equity Partners has collapsed, as first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Axios.

Why it matters: The failure reflects both deepening difficulties in obtaining PIPE financing, and broader concerns that tech valuations may have peaked.

Details: Vista wanted to merge and take public three portfolio companies that provide auto industry software — DealerSocket, Omnitracs and Solera Holdings.

  • It would have done so via a rollup merger with Apollo Strategic Growth Capital, an Apollo-sponsored SPAC that last year raised $817 million in its IPO.
  • The two sides recently began talking to potential PIPE investors, with Bloomberg reporting the $15 billion pro forma valuation ask.

Driving the news: The PIPE market had been tightening for months, and this deal hit just as public tech stocks began to sag.

  • The Nasdaq is down 3.5% for March, while the Dow and S&P 500 continue to hit new highs.
  • Investors decided the asking price was too rich. Apollo came to agree, viewing the merger to be an anachronism, harkening back to the good old days of February.

Blaming a busted deal on "market conditions" is a well-worn red herring.

  • The SPAC boom, and the tech SPAC boom in particular, has been evangelized by The Church of the Hockey Stick. Even the slightest loss of faith can have disproportionate consequences.
  • Either Apollo and the PIPE players are influenced more by short-term market fluctuations than they'd care to admit, or they see a sustained correction ahead.
  • A source familiar with the situation says this is about tech valuations in general, not about auto-related tech valuations.

The bottom line: Momentum can go both ways.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.