Israel’s Gett Terminates SPAC Merger, Exits Russian Market

Israeli ride-hailing service, Gett, and American capital market investment firm, Rosecliff Acquisition Corp. announced last week the termination of their SPAC merger (special purpose acquisition company.) Gett also announced it has withdrawn from the Russian market on Friday. 

In November 2021, Gett entered into a definitive agreement to merge with Rosecliff Acquisition, a unicorn company valued at $1 billion, a deal that was expected to close within the first half of 2022. Gett will instead forgo the $283 million it was on track to secure from the SPAC merger and cancel the merger which it says is “as a result of current market conditions.”

While Gett did not provide further details on these conditions, Israeli financial daily Globes said it was “probably because several Russian funds under sanctions are among the investors. One of them is Sberbank, one of the first two Russian banks on which the US imposed sanctions. Another high-profile Russian investor in Gett is Baring Vostok, a major private equity fund.”

The Russian transportation and delivery market accounted for 14 percent of Gett’s direct gross profit in the last quarter of the 2021 market year, according to Globes.

“After careful consideration and review, we felt that exiting the Russian market was the correct thing to do,” said Gett’s founder and CEO Dave Waiser. “I want to thank Rosecliff’s SPAC team and Mike Murphy, in particular, for their professional and committed support during this journey. I wish its experienced and driven team continued success.”

 “Without SPAC-related costs in 2022 and considering our strong operational performance; we anticipate an accelerated path to company profitability already in the third quarter of 2022, a full year earlier than originally planned,” he added. “Continuously, we remain focused on disrupting the $100 billion ground transportation management (GTM) category globally.”