On April 12, 2021, the Acting Director of the Division of Corporation Finance and Acting Chief Accountant of the SEC together issued a statement regarding the accounting and reporting considerations for warrants issued by special purpose acquisition companies entitled “Staff Statement on Accounting and Reporting Considerations for Warrants Issued by Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”). Specifically, the SEC Statement focused on certain settlement terms and provisions related to certain tender offers following a business combination, which terms are similar to those contained in the warrant agreement governing the Company’s warrants. As a result of the SEC Statement, the Company reevaluated the accounting treatment of (i) the 12,500,000 redeemable warrants (the “Public Warrants”) that were included in the units issued by the Company in its initial public offering and (ii) the 7,000,000 redeemable warrants that were issued to the Company’s sponsor in a private placement that closed concurrently with the closing of the IPO. The Company previously accounted for the Warrants as components of equity.

The Company previously accounted for its outstanding Public Warrants (as defined in Note 4) and Private Placement Warrants issued in connection with its Initial Public Offering as components of equity instead of as derivative liabilities. The warrant agreement governing the warrants includes a provision that provides for potential changes to the settlement amounts dependent upon the characteristics of the holder of the warrant. In addition, the warrant agreement includes a provision that in the event of a tender or exchange offer made to and accepted by holders of more than 50% of the outstanding shares of a single class of ordinary shares, all holders of the warrants would be entitled to receive cash for their warrants (the “tender offer provision”).

In connection with the audit of the Company’s financial statements for the period ended December 31, 2020, the Company’s management further evaluated the warrants under Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) Subtopic 815-40, Contracts in Entity’s Own Equity.  ASC Section 815-40-15 addresses equity versus liability treatment and classification of equity-linked financial instruments, including warrants, and states that a warrant may be classified as a component of equity only if, among other things, the warrant is indexed to the issuer’s common stock.  Under ASC Section 815-40-15, a warrant is not indexed to the issuer’s common stock if the terms of the warrant require an adjustment to the exercise price upon a specified event and that event is not an input to the fair value of the warrant. The Company’s Private Placement Warrants are not indexed to the Company’s ordinary shares in the manner contemplated by ASC Section 815-40-15 because the holder of the instrument is not an input into the pricing of a fixed-for-fixed option on equity shares. In addition, the tender offer provision included in the warrant agreement fails the “classified in shareholders’ equity” criteria as contemplated by ASC Section 815-40-25.

As a result of the above, the Company should have classified the warrants as derivative liabilities in its previously issued financial statements. Under this accounting treatment, the Company is required to measure the fair value of the warrants at the end of each reporting period and recognize changes in the fair value from the prior period in the Company’s operating results for the current period.

In addition, a portion of the initial transaction costs related to the IPO and attributable to the warrants must be immediately expensed, and the difference between the fair market value of the private placement warrants and the initial purchase consideration thereof is recorded as a compensation expense.