When a Korean SPAC fails to complete a merger within three years and liquidates, shareholders receive roughly 2,000 won per share plus modest interest. The offering price, not your purchase price, is the reference point for that refund — so anything paid above it becomes a straight loss in the liquidation scenario. Yet according to Asia Economy, SPACs listed in 2025 hit an average first-day intraday high of 4,067 won, or 203% of the offering price. In the same year the SPAC merger success rate fell to 38.5% from 68.0%, and 24 SPACs were delisted after failing to merge — triple the 8 cases of the prior year.
A SPAC runs no business. It lists for the sole purpose of merging with a private company, and if it cannot find one within the deadline it dissolves. That structure creates a floor no ordinary stock has — but misreading where the floor sits hides an entire loss zone from view.
What comes back per share on liquidation
A SPAC must set aside at least 90% of the capital raised in its offering. A capital-markets guide from the Korea Center for Investor Education notes that while 90% is the regulatory floor, in practice sponsors usually deposit close to 100% with institutions such as Korea Securities Finance Corporation. The offering price is typically 2,000 won per share, and if no merger closes within three years the SPAC dissolves and returns principal plus modest interest.
Two things follow. First, the refund is benchmarked to the offering price, not to whatever the market later charged you. Second, the interest tracks deposit rates, so over a three-year hold it is not large enough to change the outcome materially. Dissenting shareholders can also exercise appraisal rights when a merger is put to a vote, but that price is also set near the offering level — for anyone who bought high in the market it is a loss-locking button, not an exit.
Everything above the offering price is the loss
The arithmetic is simple. Assume a liquidation refund of 2,000 won (excluding interest, deliberately conservative). For an entry price P, the return is (2,000 − P) ÷ P. Blending in the merger scenario using the 2025 success rate of 38.5% and the average one-year post-merger return of −32.8% compiled by Newstop gives an expected value of 0.385 × P × 0.672 + 0.615 × 2,000.
| Entry price (KRW) | Liquidation return (2,000 won refund) | Blended expected return |
|---|---|---|
| 2,000 | 0.0% | −12.6% |
| 2,200 | −9.1% | −18.2% |
| 2,500 | −20.0% | −24.9% |
| 3,000 | −33.3% | −33.1% |
| 4,067 | −50.8% | −43.9% |
Look at the last two rows. Above roughly 3,000 won the two columns cross near −33%, and beyond that the blended figure even looks less bad. That is not an illusion; it is what the formula does. The higher the entry price, the smaller the refund floor becomes in relative terms, until the outcome barely depends on whether a merger happens at all. A floor existing and a floor being useful are different claims.
Shares allotted at 2,000 won in the offering and shares bought on the open market afterwards are, in this sense, entirely different assets. How allotment method changes the quantity you actually receive is covered separately in the piece on equal versus proportional IPO allotment.
What a SPAC guarantees is not your principal but the offering price. The distance between the two is the risk.
Does a successful merger change things
Closing a deal is not the same as making money. Newstop's tally shows average post-merger share prices at −9.2% after three months, −32.8% after one year and −30.8% after three years. Asia Economy reported that the 14 SPACs that completed mergers in 2025 were down 26.6% on average nine months after listing, with the decline widening over time.
The process is not fast either. SPAC mergers add creditor-protection and appraisal-rights procedures, taking about six weeks longer than a direct listing. On review time alone, SPAC mergers averaged 110 days against 117 days for a standard KOSDAQ listing — thin support for the idea that a SPAC is the quick back door.
What zero merger approvals signals
Financial News counted 17 preliminary merger-review approvals in 2023, 17 in 2024 and 9 in 2025 — then zero through early August 2026. Applications themselves have thinned, and the IPO and delisting reform package that took effect in July 2025 tightened listing standards, narrowing KOSDAQ toward higher-quality issuers.
Supply has shrunk on the other side too. New SPAC listings fell from 45 in 2022 to 25 in 2025, with offering proceeds down 32.2% to 270.4 billion won. Meanwhile 78 SPACs were still hunting for targets at the end of 2025, and 14 of them had passed 27 months since listing. Given the three-year clock, most of that inventory drifts toward liquidation: 17 SPACs were already wound up in the first half of 2026, against 12 in the same period a year earlier.
In a market where listings are down, liquidations are up and approvals have stopped, first-day prices still double the offering price. That is why the Financial Supervisory Service said it would work with related agencies on curbing first-day spikes and expand its consumer alerts.
What to watch
These are the numbers you can actually verify, along with the conditions that would invalidate the reading above.
- Listing date and time remaining — past 27 months, closing a merger inside the deadline becomes difficult.
- Distance between the current price and 2,000 won — the wider the gap, the larger the liquidation loss. Apply the formula above directly.
- Size and custodian of the escrow — disclosed in the securities registration statement; 90% versus near-100% sets the floor on the refund.
- Whether merger approvals recover — if 2026's zero persists through the second half, liquidation pressure keeps building.
- The one-year post-merger return — if that −32.8% improves, the expected value in the table changes with it.
