Cantor Fitzgerald pays $6.75 million to settle SEC charges over misleading SPAC disclosures (updated)

Satellogic

12/12/2024 23:01

(Adds more context throughout)
       WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Wall Street brokerage
Cantor Fitzgerald has agreed to pay a $6.75-million penalty to
settle Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it misled
investors in blank-check companies it controlled, the regulator
said on Thursday.
    Cantor Fitzgerald did not immediately respond to a request
for comment. According to the SEC, Cantor neither admitted nor
denied the SEC's findings.
    Blank-check firms, or special purpose acquisition companies
(SPACs) are shell companies that raise funds through a listing
with the intention of acquiring a private company and taking it
public, circumventing the initial public offering process.  
    According to the SEC, in 2020 and 2021 a team of Cantor
Fitzgerald executives managed and controlled two SPACs that
raised $750 million from investors through IPOs ahead of the
SPACs' eventual mergers with View and Satellogic  SATL.O . 
    In their SEC filings, the SPACs said they had not had
substantive discussions with potential takeover targets prior to
their IPOs, even though Cantor, acting on behalf of the SPACs,
had already commenced negotiations with View and Satellogic, the
SEC said.  
    “This enforcement action reflects the straightforward
proposition that any disclosures about substantive discussions
with potential targets must be materially accurate," Sanjay
Wadhwa, acting director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement,
said in a statement. 
    

 (Reporting by Jasper Ward and Michelle Price; editing by
Kanishka Singh and Rod Nickel)
 ((Jasper.Ward@thomsonreuters.com;))