Life cycle
% done is how far along that path. Pulse is how healthy and urgent the heart is right now. They are not the same number. The rings on the graphic are illustration, not the model.
01
First heartbeat
A blank-check shell lists. Cash goes into trust. Units, rights, and warrants exist. The body is alive, but it has no business yet — only a clock and a pulse at rest.
02
Looking for a body
Management hunts a target. Filings are quiet. The pulse is slow on purpose. Most of the 18–24 month window is this: alive, unused, expensive to keep breathing.
03
A skipped beat of intent
They negotiate. A letter of intent is not a deal. It is the first irregularity on the tape — worth watching, not worth treating as a close.
04
Borrowed blood
New money to backfill redemptions. A PIPE can steady the pulse or advertise fear. Read who is writing the check, not the headline.
05
Rhythm found
Both sides sign. This is the first real heartbeat of a combination. Post-DA, the right often pops. That pop is a trade, not the close.
06
The EKG
The registration statement is the electrical record. No book, no path. Search the SPAC, the HoldCo, and the merger sub or you will miss the filing.
07
Cadence
A void after the first S-4. Then comments. Then faster /As as they near effectiveness. Quicker amendments are not noise — they are a rising pulse. Silence is the skip.
08
The vote is being printed
When EX-99 is a form of proxy, or tproxy graphics hit the book, they are preparing a meeting. Pulse jumps. This is late-stage life, not a rumor.
09
Systole
The meeting. Redemptions print in the next 8-K. Trust that was going to be equity becomes cash leaving the body. The deal can still die here.
10
The last SPAC beat
Merger effective. The shell has a business. Shares, rights, and warrants convert or keep trading under new names. Selling starts the day the new stock appears — which is why E[Post] is not $10.
11
What is left of the pulse
The PubCo ticker is the new name. Rights become stock. Warrants become optionality on that stock. The SPAC is gone. The trade is not.
Arrest
Item 1.02 on an 8-K — mutual termination of the merger agreement — is cardiac arrest. The S-4 on file is a stale EKG. Path goes back to a listed shell. Two walk-aways (Flag Ship) is a weaker hunting record, not a late-stage close.
Deadline
If they never find a body, trust goes back to common holders. Rights and warrants go to zero. That is not a skipped beat. That is the line going flat.
Read the live pulse on the Rights Pulse, the path on each name, and the 8-Ks in the Journal.