Insights
Perspectives on capital markets, from the desk.
Newsletter editions, research and long-form commentary from Welsbach's bankers and sector specialists.
Latest from the desk
This week in capital markets.
Updated October 20, 2026
Welsbach Monthly Newsletter
A monthly read on macro, markets and SPACs.
Each edition distils hundreds of hours of research and conversations with founders, sponsors and institutional investors into a single monthly view of the cross-border listings market.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: October 2026 Edition
SPACs held 58% of U.S. IPOs with 152 priced for about $30 billion and 116 live deals worth $64.1 billion, even as the Fed hiked for the first time since 2023 and the 10-year yield hit 5.24%.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: September 2026 Edition
SPACs held 58% of U.S. IPOs year-to-date with 147 priced for $29 billion, 377 active vehicles holding $60.6 billion in trust and 107 live deals worth $63.1 billion, while a hawkish Jackson Hole put a September Fed hike back on the table.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: August 2026 Edition
SPACs took 59% of U.S. IPOs year-to-date and the forward book now spans 371 active vehicles with $60.1 billion in trust and 107 live deals worth $65.1 billion, even as a Red Sea oil shock pushed Brent above $100 and the 10-year to 4.68%.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: July 2026 Edition
SPACs now account for 60% of all U.S. IPOs, with 363 active vehicles holding $57.6 billion in trust and 109 live deals worth $71.8 billion. Our monthly read on macro, markets and the de-SPAC backlog.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: June 2026 Edition
SPACs captured 61% of all U.S. IPOs through May 2026, matching the 2021 peak, with 352 active vehicles holding $55.6 billion in trust and 107 live deals worth $69.6 billion. Our monthly read on macro, markets and SPACs.
Monthly
Welsbach Capital Markets Insights: May 2026 Edition
SPACs captured 61% of all US IPO market share by count through April 2026, matching the 2021 peak, while a weaponized Strait of Hormuz and an 8-4 Fed split left policy frozen.
Welsbach Weekly Archive
One idea, every week, from the deal table.
Short, opinionated reads on De-SPAC execution, PIPE financing, sponsor economics and what it takes to list a cross-border company in the U.S.
Weekly
Built for the Hard Stuff
Space, nuclear, quantum, defense, robotics, critical minerals: companies whose value sits years out are finding that the De-SPAC isn't a shortcut. For what they are, it's the right structure.
Weekly
The Translation Problem - What Makes an International Company Listable, Not Just Impressive
A great company in Singapore, Seoul or Dubai is not automatically a company Nasdaq can list. The gap is rarely the business. It's the plumbing, and it takes months no deal timeline will give you.
Weekly
The Sponsor Is on the Clock
270 blank-check companies are hunting a shrinking pool of executable targets against a wall of 2027 deadlines. Right now the leverage sits with the prepared, and most founders don't use it.
Weekly
Signed Is Not Funded: The Six-Month Gap That Decides Everything
Last month more enterprise value was terminated than closed. The riskiest stretch of a De-SPAC is the one founders plan for least.
Weekly
There Is No Average De-SPAC Anymore
The 2026 aftermarket sorts new listings into two piles within weeks, and which pile a company lands in is mostly decided before the ticker ever changes.
Weekly
The $60 Billion Mirage
Why the money sitting in trust is the least reliable capital in a De-SPAC, and how the deals that hold their price are built around the cash that can't walk.
Thought leadership
The DREAMS Protocol: a founder's roadmap to institutional equity capital.
Written by Welsbach co-founder Daniel Mamadou-Blanco, a recognized authority on the De-SPAC merger market, the book distils more than twenty years of capital markets experience across Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Nomura into a six-step protocol for securing equity capital from SPACs and qualified institutional investors.
"Raising capital can be a smooth process and does not have to be burdensome. Still, there is a common methodology that needs to be applied within any business."
Rethink Press, 2024
SPACs & De-SPAC
Institutional capital
Newsletter
The Welsbach Briefing.
A quarterly perspective on cross-border capital markets, delivered to institutional investors, sponsors and founders.