IX Acquisition Corp. (IXAQF)

IX Acquisition Corp. is a shell company—formally a SPAC or blank check company—that was formed to acquire another business. The company raised $230 million from public investors when it went public, then identified AERKOMM Inc., a Nevada satellite communications firm, as the target of its business combination. This is how many SPACs work: raise money, find a private company, merge them together, and ring the bell on a public company.

What happened

In October 2021, IX Acquisition went public on Nasdaq, selling 23 million shares at $10 each and raising $230 million. The company was a blank cheque: a pooled fund betting on its management team to find a good business to buy and merge into it. SPACs are allowed two years to complete a merger; if they don’t, they have to return the money to shareholders.

The SPAC found its target: AERKOMM, which develops satellite-based broadband systems. In March 2024, the two companies announced a merger agreement. AERKOMM was supposed to be the future: a developer of satellite communication technology that could provide broadband to parts of the world underserved by terrestrial networks. The valuation was set at $200 million in enterprise value, with another $200 million in earnout shares if AERKOMM hit growth targets.

Why this is tricky

The story went sideways. Public shareholders hated the deal and redeemed their shares—took their money back rather than stay invested in the merged company. A SPAC only closes if it has enough money left in the trust account. As redemptions mounted, the trust shrank. By late 2025, IX Acquisition had only about $19.8 million left, nowhere near enough to close a $200 million deal. The company missed Nasdaq’s deadline for completing a merger, so its stock was delisted and moved to the OTC markets.

IX Acquisition asked shareholders to extend the merger deadline multiple times. Each extension was a sign that the deal was in trouble: that AERKOMM’s financial numbers didn’t work, or that new investors wouldn’t come in, or both. The timeline kept slipping.

The AERKOMM angle

AERKOMM itself trades in Europe on Euronext. It makes satellite communication equipment and infrastructure for broadband—the kind of technology you might use to reach remote areas or provide backup connectivity when ground-based systems fail. The company is small and had struggled to find traction as a public company. The SPAC merger was supposed to bring fresh capital and a U.S. listing. So far, it has done neither.

The core problem with SPACs

IX Acquisition’s troubles are not unique. The SPAC model works when the target company has realistic growth prospects and the public shareholders believe in them. When they don’t—when the deal looks expensive, the target’s business looks weak, or the market turns sour—public shareholders vote with their feet. They redeem. The trust fund drains. The merger becomes impossible. The sponsor (the SPAC’s original managers) owns a chunk of the equity that only becomes valuable if the merger closes, so they have an incentive to do the deal; the public shareholders, sitting with a shrinking trust account and facing years of delay, often do not.

What happens next

IX Acquisition has extended its deadline to October 2026. If the merger doesn’t close by then, the company must return whatever cash is left in trust to the redeemed shareholders. The SPAC’s shareholders will have spent years waiting for nothing. The sponsor will have lost its equity stake. AERKOMM will remain a small European-listed satellite firm, still searching for growth capital.

This outcome—deal stretched, redemptions piling up, trust depleting, SPAC delisting from Nasdaq to OTC—has become routine in the post-2021 SPAC wave. The model promised to democratize access to private capital and offer private companies an alternative to the traditional IPO roadshow. Instead, many public shareholders learned that backing a blank cheque is riskier than it looks.