After a long period of intense anticipation with many doubting if they’ll ever see the day come Better.com is finally going public.
Better.com’s proposal to merge with Aurora Acquisition Corp. through a SPAC (special purpose acquisition) has been approved by shareholders, the company announced today.
According to an SEC filing, Better.com will merge with Aurora or go public “on or about August 22, 2023.”
“At least 65% of the outstanding ordinary shares of the company entitled to vote at this meeting have voted in favor of (the) proposal,” Aurora Acquisition Corp CEO Arnaud Massenet stated during a shareholder meeting on Friday, according to HousingWire.
According to Aurora’s July SEC filing, the merged entity will receive at least $550 million in new capital from SoftBank upon completion of the transaction. Also, it could possibly receive an additional $200 million. If Aurora’s sponsoring investment firm, Novator, exercises its $100 million option, SoftBank is required to match. There were reports in late November 2021 that Aurora Acquisition Corp. and SoftBank had amended the terms of their financing agreement to provide Better with half of the $1.5 billion they had promised immediately rather than waiting until the closure of the deal.
Better.com had originally planned to go public in May 2021 through a $6 billion SPAC. (The transaction was later valued at $7.7 billion). Later that year, things took a drastic turn for the worse, and the SPAC was postponed.
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With so many obstacles confronting Better.com over the last two years, including layoffs, high-profile CEO resignations, a slowing housing market, and unfavorable publicity, industry analysts were skeptical that the company’s aspirations to go public would be realized.
last week the long-awaited vote for Better.com to go public was scheduled for Friday the 11th ahead of the extended deadline to complete the merger deal on September 30.
In late July, Aurora stated in an SEC filing that shareholders will be asked to vote on a proposal that if the SPAC merger occurred and Aurora survived, Aurora’s name would be changed to “Better Home & Finance Holding Company.”
Despite the poor performance of blank-check combinations in prior quarters, Better.com indicated last year that it wanted to proceed with its planned public debut. Better.com had seen some turbulence since announcing its ambitions to merge with a SPAC, including repeated bungled layoffs (more on those here and here) and shifting market conditions that damaged aspects of its company, such as a rise in mortgage interest rates. CEO Vishal Garg publicly stated during a layoffs meeting that the company had “probably pissed away $200 million.”
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According to TechCrunch, the SEC stated last week that it does not intend to recommend an enforcement action against Better.com. The announcement followed an inquiry by the SEC to establish whether any violations of federal securities laws had occurred. The SEC began investigating whether Better.com had violated federal securities laws in July, asking for documents about the company’s and SPAC partner Aurora Acquisition Corp.’s business activity.
On June 7, the beleaguered fintech startup fired off its real estate team, switching from an in-house agent strategy to a partnership agent model. It also continues to lose money.
Other Aurora files from July show that Better.com had a net loss of $89.9 million in Q1 2023 and had laid off about 91% of its workers over an 18-month period, according to HousingWire. While Better.com’s deficit appears to have narrowed from a net loss of $327.7 million in the first quarter of 2022, it is definitely still struggling.
