Key points
- Holders redeemed 26 million of 29 million public shares
- PSQL closed its August 28 debut up 95%
- Pasqal reports about $360 million at closing
- Shares touched $24.69 Monday, closed $15.56 Tuesday
Pasqal Holding (PSQL) began trading on the Nasdaq on Friday, August 28, and closed its first session at $19.11, up 95% from the $9.79 where Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II had finished the day before. Three days earlier, most of Bleichroeder's shareholders had chosen not to come along. Holders of 26,039,602 of the SPAC's roughly 29 million public Class A shares elected to redeem for cash at about $10 a share instead of rolling into the merged company, according to an 8-K filed after the August 25 shareholder meeting.
Both things are true at once. Roughly 90% of the SPAC's public money took the exit, and the stock nearly doubled anyway.
Why did the stock double after 90% cashed out?
Redemptions on that scale leave very few shares in public hands. When the float is that small, modest buying can move the price a long way, and that's what the first three sessions look like. By Tuesday's close the shares stood at $15.56. That's still about 59% above Bleichroeder's final price, and volume never reached 4 million shares on any of the three days. The slide continued Wednesday, with the stock trading near $14 as of 11:30 a.m. Eastern.
| Session | High | Close | Change |
|---|
| Fri., Aug. 28 (debut) | $20.10 | $19.11 | +95.2% |
| Mon., Aug. 31 | $24.69 | $17.30 | -9.5% |
| Tue., Sept. 1 | $17.50 | $15.56 | -10.1% |
The shareholder vote itself wasn't close. The share issuance proposal passed with 21,452,314 votes in favor and 2,631,227 against, per the 8-K. Voting for the merger and redeeming aren't exclusive. A holder could approve the deal and still take the cash, and the redemption count says most did.
How did the deal close with an empty trust?
The deal was financed from outside the trust. A group led by Inflection Point Asset Management agreed to buy $250 million of senior unsecured convertible bonds, a commitment that was raised from $200 million in late May. The business combination was completed on August 27, and Pasqal said it had approximately $360 million of cash available at closing. The deal valued the company at $2.0 billion before the transaction.
"Today is not a finish line; it is an acceleration point," Chief Executive Officer Wasiq Bokhari said in the closing announcement. "Our systems operate in standard data center environments and are built to scale with enterprise workloads. As a public company, we will have a stronger platform to move faster, serve customers around the world and build enduring value."
We covered the merger in July, when the deal was still pending and the open question was how many shareholders would stay in. The stock had spent months pinned near trust value, and the hedge fund Millennium Management held a 2.8% stake in Bleichroeder of the kind large funds routinely park in pre-deal SPACs. The redemption count answered the question. For how the redemption mechanics work in any SPAC, see our SPAC explainer.
What does Pasqal actually have?
Pasqal builds its quantum computers in France using neutral atoms held in place by lasers. IBM and Google went with superconducting circuits, and IonQ (IONQ) uses trapped ions. Alain Aspect, who shared the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, co-founded the company in 2019. Seven of its processors have been deployed so far, with three more in production. One of them sits inside an Aramco data center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The companies have called that 200-qubit system the first quantum computer installed in a commercial data center for business use. In July, Pasqal hired Mark Armstrong, a nearly 30-year HPE veteran, to run its commercial push across EMEA and APAC.
The roadmap is where the $2 billion figure has to be earned. Pasqal is targeting processors with 10,000 or more physical qubits and over 200 logical qubits by the end of 2029.
Booked revenue now has to show up in SEC filings rather than in press releases. Bleichroeder's last quarterly report showed the trust at about $289.7 million; the next filings under the ticker will be Pasqal's own. PSQL is the first pure-play neutral-atom quantum company on a U.S. exchange; its closest technical rivals, QuEra and Atom Computing, remain private.
