2023 was a bad year for SPACs. 2024 may be even tougher, if the SEC has anything to say about it. Last week, the agency approved rules intended to increase investor protections around SPACs and bring their treatment more in line with that of traditional IPOs.

Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, are companies that go public through IPOs with the intent of merging with or acquiring private companies, known as target companies. The target companies can then be publicly listed without having to go through an IPO. SPACs, which allow companies to go public more quickly than ordinary IPOs, became popular in 2020 and 2021. But the “SPAC boom” ended in 2022 as the market worsened, and the SEC first proposed the tighter regulations it just released. In 2023, only 31 SPACs went public, compared with 613 in 2021.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler, a longtime critic of SPACs, hailed the new regulations as a means of safeguarding investors.

“Just because a company uses an alternative method to go public does not mean that its investors are any less deserving of time-tested investor protections,” he said in a statement.

Click here for more on what the new SPAC regs look like.—CV

Finance pros, what if we told ya that you could save two days/month by leveraging automation, which means 3x more time to focus on high-impact activities?

Sound unlikely? Intriguing? Bananas? The good news is it’s 100% possible, and Sage is delving into the details with their new report Faster Close. Faster Insights.

This report covers how automation is shaping the future of finance, helping professionals regain 24 days a year rather than spend that time on manual tasks.

Finance teams with high levels of automation spend over half their time (58%) on strategic, value-added activities. Finance teams with the lowest levels of automation? They’re only spending 18% of their time doing the same.

Wanna be in the former camp? Grab Sage’s report to learn how.

Procter & Gamble delivered stronger-than-expected earnings in its second quarter the same way it did in the first: raising prices, yet still keeping its household staples moving through store check-outs. Now the consumer goods giant says it can keep sales growing for the next half-year even if it slows down the price hikes.

P&G, which makes everything from Dawn to Braun, posted 16% year over year earnings per share growth, beating analyst expectations by about 8%, according to Zacks research. That’s after accounting for its $1.3 billion devaluation of Gillette, which P&G bought in 2005—before cheaper competitors like Dollar Shave Club and Harry’s even existed. Throughout the 2010s, those competitors shaved away Gillette’s supermajority market share.

While it relied on price increases to drive a 4% jump in organic sales, P&G noted that sales volume grew in grooming, home care, and family care, which includes Bounty and Charmin. Fittingly, its hair care products also enjoyed higher volume.

To keep those sales up, P&G will need to keep pumping up the volume, because the company is considering slowing future price increases.

To continue reading, click here.—GD

Ransomware attacks were at the forefront of the security conversation over the last year, and for good reason.

New research from IT security firm NCC Group shows that ransomware attacks increased 84% year over year in 2023, even accounting for a drop in December from November’s levels.

By the numbers. In a statement accompanying the report, the company’s Global Head of Threat Intelligence, Matt Hull, said that “closing 2023 with over 4,000 global ransomware attacks reflects the sharp rise of cybercriminal activity compared with 2022.”

The NCC Group report estimated that asimilar rise in ransomware attacks in 2024 would result in a total of around 8,500 attacks by end of year. That’s a large increase, and NCC Group warned that “with the constant influx of new threat actors, the increase could even be exponential.”

Click here to keep reading IT Brew’s story on the rise of ransomware.—EH

Today’s top finance reads.

Stat: 350. That’s the number of employees that vacuum-maker iRobot, which is behind the popular Roomba, is laying off. The same day the vacuum firm announced the 31% reduction of its staff, Amazon also said it was no longer pursuing an acquisition of the company. The two companies jointly said there was “no path to regulatory approval in the European Union.” (The Verge)

Quote: “The real danger here is that the Fed loosens prematurely, which is exactly what they did in the late 1960s…The risks of allowing inflation to persist still far outweighs the risk of triggering a recession. Their failure to do this in the late 1960s is one of the major factors that allowed inflation to become entrenched in the 1970s.”—Index Fund Advisors SVP Mark Higgins on the still-existent possibility of a hard landing. (CNBC)

Read: The succession plan that wasn’t. Jim Esposito, one of Goldman Sachs’ most senior executives, is leaving the company after almost 30 years. Chief executive David Solomon hadn’t announced any plans to step down, but Esposito was just reportedly keeping his fingers crossed—and allegedly determined it wasn’t worth the wait. (the Wall Street Journal)

Insights—in insight: Finance teams leveraging automation regain two days every month. Use that extra time to surface insights, become a strategic partner, and transform how you work. Learn how in Sage’s report.*

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