By
Tolu Ajiboye
March 8th, 2024
Coincheck is combining forces with SPAC Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV and will list on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.
Leading Japanese crypto exchange platform Coincheck recently announced its intention to list on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Coincheck announced that to achieve this, it would merge with Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV (THCP), a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The announcement states that the deal is worth $1.25 billion.
Expected to conclude in the second half of this year, the combined entity will list on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the “CNCK” ticker. Pursuant to the deal and assuming no redemptions by shareholders, THCP will provide $237 million in cash to the merger. Also, existing shareholders at Coincheck may additionally receive as much as 50 million shares. However, this would also be based on events linked to future stock price performance.
Coincheck & THCP Top Executives Weigh In on the Nasdaq Blueprint
Monex Group CEO and Coincheck Executive Director Oki Matsumoto weighed in on his platform’s merger with the blank check company. According to the chief executive at Monex, an online securities company that owns 94.2% of Coincheck:
“…I am excited and fully committed to working with Thunder Bridge IV and Gary and his team, who bring extensive experience in financial services M&A and deep knowledge and experience in global capital markets, to create a new global Coincheck Group, with Coincheck as the cornerstone.”
Upon conclusion of the SPAC merger, Monex will still retain all its existing entities at Coincheck. This would translate to roughly 82% in the new entity.
Thunder Bridge IV president and CEO Gary Simanson also weighed in on the merger saying that “Coincheck is exactly what we were looking for amid a global playing field.”
Simanson expressed delight at the antecedents of Coincheck and how that serves as a springboard for THCP’s own financial services. On how the SPAC deal benefited both the US and Japanese governments, Simanson stated:
“We are excited to partner with Monex to bring Coincheck into the US public markets to facilitate its next stage of growth, and to further unlock the crypto economy for customers and institutions in Japan.”
Upon conclusion of the merger, Simanson will become the chief executive officer of the combined company.
About Coincheck
Headquartered in Tokyo and regulated by Japan’s Financial Services Agency, Coincheck has a verified user base of approximately 1.5 million. According to CoinGecko, the crypto exchange has a 24-hour trading volume of $130 million.
Monex Group Inc acquired Coincheck for approximately $34 million back in 2018. Coincheck was at the center of a $530 million digital money heist during that period. Upon initial acquisition of Coincheck, Monex planned to launch an initial public offering of Coincheck shares in the future.
SPACs
SPACs are publicly-traded companies that have no commercial operations and exist solely to raise capital through an IPO. With the generated funds, these blank check companies then go on to acquire private entities at a later time.