How to read a trust statement

Trust per share is the number that anchors a pre-deal SPAC, and it is almost never printed as a single figure. It has to be assembled from the balance sheet and the footnotes of the quarterly report.

The two numbers you need

• Investments held in Trust Account — a line on the balance sheet, usually just under cash. This is the numerator.
• Class A shares subject to possible redemption — reported outside permanent equity, in the mezzanine section. This is the denominator. Founder shares are not included, because they have no claim on the trust.

Divide the first by the second and you have trust per share. Compare it to the market price and you have the arbitrage spread, before tax and time.

What erodes it

• Taxes on trust interest, which are usually permitted to be withdrawn from the trust itself.
• Dissolution expenses, typically capped at a small fixed amount.
• Extension payments, when the sponsor contributes to the trust to buy more time — these raise the total but are paid against a smaller share count after redemptions, so the per-share figure often rises.

Redemptions do not reduce trust per share — they reduce the trust and the share count together. What they do reduce is the cash the target actually receives at closing, which is why a high redemption rate can kill a deal that looked funded.

Where to look

Start with the most recent 10-Q or 10-K. The balance sheet gives you both figures. The subsequent-events footnote tells you whether anything material happened after the period closed — an extension vote, a redemption, a terminated deal. That footnote is where the surprises live.