Grab going public in largest-ever SPAC deal
13 April 2021
Grab, a Singapore-based "super app" maker, on Tuesday announced plans to go public in the U.S. via the largest-ever SPAC deal.
Why it matters: The deal is more than twice the size of current record-holder, United Wholesale Mortgages.
Details: Grab would have a pro forma equity value of $38.9 billion, while SPAC sponsor Altimeter Growth Corp. agreed to have its shares "locked up" for three years.
What is Grab? The company launched in 2011 as a ride-hail platform, basically the Singapore version of Uber. But it's since transformed into a "super-app" or comprehensive digital wallet, providing everything from food delivery to third-party ecommerce logistics to financial services.
- The super-app concept hasn't really caught on in the U.S., as evidenced by Uber offering separate ride-hail and food delivery apps.
- Its popularity in Southeast Asia is driven, in part, by slower mobile broadband speeds, which discourage people from downloading multiple apps (let alone running them simultaneously). And, for Grab, that helps keep people within its ecosystem — allowing it to offer ancillary products like auto insurance.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly 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.