Grab was the biggest SPAC ever at $40B — three months later, $22B of it was gone

Grab — Southeast Asia's super-app of ride-hailing, delivery and payments — went public in December 2021 the way the era demanded: through a SPAC merger with Altimeter Capital that valued the company at about $40 billion, the largest blank-check listing ever. SoftBank was the marquee backer; the Nasdaq debut was the test the whole SPAC market was watching.

The first earnings report arrived in March 2022 and answered the question nobody had priced: the fourth-quarter net loss had widened to $1.1 billion from $635 million a year earlier, and revenue had fallen 44% to $122 million — the incentives that bought riders and drivers were costing more than the rides earned. The shares fell 37% on the day.

Three months after listing, Grab's market capitalisation was down 63% — about $22 billion of value gone. The CFO promised capital discipline and a path toward the advertising and financial-services businesses; the path existed, but the valuation had assumed it was already paved. Grab kept building; the company the SPAC priced at $40 billion and the company the market repriced were the same business at two different stories about the future.