A spokesman for USD Coin (USDC) issuer Circle has denied reports that it blames the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its failed $9 billion plan to go public in December..
The representative of the stablecoin issuer thus responded to an article published on January 25 in the Financial Times in which Circle was said to have “blamed” the securities regulator for its “derailed” IPO for delaying approval of a merger deal.
Nevertheless, A Circle spokesperson clarified to Cointelegraph that this was not the case and that it does not blame the SEC at all for the termination of its merger agreement..
“Circle has not, and does not, blame the SEC for anything related to the mutual termination of our SPAC merger agreement with Concord, and any statement to the contrary is inaccurate.”
Circle’s listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) was contingent on being able to combine with Concord, a company created by banker Bob Diamond through a Special Purpose Acquisition Company deal.also known as a SPAC agreement.
However, according to the FT, Circle said the merger could not be consummated because the SEC failed to declare the related S-4 filing effective on time, which would make the deal lapse on December 10..
Circle’s spokesman referred to previous statements made by the company in December, noting that “the deal is just over.”.
Concord had not publicly disclosed a reason for the failed business combination, but filed a Form 8-K with the SEC on December 5 –the same day the deal was announced to have ended- which revealed that he was being excluded from NYSE listing due to “abnormally low trading price levels”.
In fact, in a December 5 tweet, Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire had nothing but positive words to say about the SEC, noting that while it was disappointing that they couldn’t complete the ratings on time, he was still planning to become a publicly traded company..
2/ From my perspective, I believe that the SEC has been rigorous and thorough in understanding our business and many novel aspects of this industry. This kind of review is necessary to ultimately provide trust, transparency and accountability for major companies in crypto.
— Jeremy Allaire (@jerallaire) December 5, 2022
2/ From my point of view, I think the SEC has been rigorous and thorough in understanding our business and many new aspects of this industry. This type of review is necessary to ultimately provide trust, transparency, and accountability to major cryptocurrency companies.
As Cointelegraph had previously reported, the deal was first announced in July 2021 at a valuation of $4.5bn, before doubling down last February when it was revised up to $9bn.
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