Wynn Resorts and Bill Foley-backed SPAC terminate $3.2 billion deal

(Reuters) – Wynn Resorts Ltd and billionaire investor Bill Foley-backed blank-check firm on Friday called off their $3.2 billion deal to take the casino operator’s online betting subsidiary public.

The termination follows similar collapses in the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) space. Earlier this week, NFL veterans Eli and Peyton Manning-backed online grill retailer BBQ Holding also called off its planned SPAC merger.

With tightening accounting guidance and closer scrutiny from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, dealmaking in the SPAC market has slowed down from last year.

Other proposed deals, including those of sports card firm Topps and the high-profile deal between SPAC magnate Bill Ackman and Universal Music Group, have also failed.

Wynn and the blank-check company Austerlitz Acquisition Corporation I did not give a reason for calling off the planned deal.

Craig Billings, chief executive officer of Wynn Interactive, the subsidiary of Wynn Resorts, said the company expects its requirement of heavy investments to decline meaningfully beginning in the first quarter of next year.

Austerlitz went public in February, raising $690 million. SPACs typically have two years to hunt for a company to merge with.

The SPAC’s shares were down 1.2%, and Wynn Resorts’ shares were down 0.4% in early trading.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)