Nabors Launches Second Energy Transition SPAC

Nabors Industries is taking part of its energy transition effort to the public market with the launch of its second special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) this year.

The new SPAC will aim to raise $300 million, which it will use to buyout companies that specialize in alternative energy, energy storage, emissions reduction and carbon capture, utilization and sequestration and other energy transition businesses, according to Nabors’ June 21 regulatory filing.

Nabors began making startup venture investments in recent years, based on the theory that the firm’s wide-ranging expertise, coupled with its global footprint would benefit emerging, innovative companies to scale up and “expedite their penetration into what we see as probably one of the largest macro investment business [events] in history,” said Guillermo Sierra, Nabors’ vice president for strategic initiatives—energy transition.

“The energy transition is expected to still be somewhere in the order of $300 trillion of capital being spent over the next several decades into it, making it literally the largest reallocation of capital in human history,” Sierra told Hart Energy in an exclusive interview. “Bridging that gap requires an inordinate amount of large-scale deployment of new ideas and new technologies. We have focused on those technologies and ideas that we have something of value to add.”

In its prospectus filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Nabors said the SPAC, Nabors Energy Transition Corp. II, will raise the $300 million through the sale of 30 million units. Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share and one-half of one warrant. Each whole warrant entitles the holder to purchase one Class A ordinary share at a price of $11.50/share.

Nabors intends to list the SPAC units and shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “NETDU.” If the securities are approved the company expects trading to begin on the 52nd day following the June 21 prospectus.

In February, Nabors’ first SPAC, Nabors Energy Transition Corp., signed an agreement to merge with Australia-based Vast Solar. The combined entity will be renamed Vast and will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “VSTE.”

The use of the SPACs, also called “blank check” companies, has gained popularity in recent years within the energy industry and shown mixed results. The model is designed to create a public market presence in which a sponsor, the investors that own the SPAC, can raise money to acquire a particular kind of company within a specific timeframe, usually between 18 months and two years.

Nabors has operated as various entities for more than 100 years. Since the late 1980s, the firm has grown into one of the global drilling sector’s largest contractors.

That’s a big part of the difference between Nabors and the sponsors of other SPACs that failed, Sierra said.

Vast, the company that resulted from Nabors’ first SPAC, filled a need and hit the public market at an attractive price.

“The proof is in the pudding,” Sierra said.

Still, he said, it has been a challenge to launch a SPAC in recent years.

“The market has been fickle. Part of the reason why is because an overwhelming majority of SPACs were, and I'm really not underrepresenting this, three dudes and a laptop and $8 million,” Sierra said. “We are not that. We are not in the stock market because we want to flip or take financial economic immediate benefit out of the value of the structure. We are here in this market because it's another tool for us to invest beyond our traditional means.”