Four Jacksonville companies were in various stages of initial public offerings during the first three months of this year, suggesting the IPO market is heating up.
However, the real hot market trend is the special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.
SPACs are companies that launch IPOs without having an operating business, with the intention of finding an acquisition target after the IPO.
The market reached Jacksonville two weeks ago when space technology company Redwire LLC agreed to go public by merging into a SPAC formed last year.
But Jacksonville already had a connection to the SPAC market through Bill Foley, chairman of Fidelity National Financial Inc.