Methodology
How PrimeRisk calculates cash-in-trust per share.
Data Sources
All trust account balances and share counts are extracted from public SEC EDGAR filings — primarily 10-Q and 10-K quarterly and annual reports. We use the SEC's full-text search API to identify filings containing trust account disclosures, then parse the financial statements to extract the relevant figures.
Market prices, bid/ask data, volume, and average volume are sourced from Yahoo Finance and are updated daily after market close.
CIT Calculation Hierarchy
We compute up to six estimates of CIT per share and display the best available. The hierarchy runs from highest to lowest confidence — the first non-null, valid value wins.
| Level | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | External / Public | Trust per share from a third-party data provider. Highest confidence when available. |
| 2 | SEC CIT, accrued to today | Per-share value from the most recent 10-K or 10-Q, compounded forward from the filing date to today using the prevailing 3-month T-bill rate. Reflects both the audited filing balance and interest accrued since that date. |
| 3 | CIT Accrued Adjusted | T-bill accrual from IPO date, minus modeled trust expenses (see Trust Expense Estimation below). Used when no SEC filing data is available. |
| 4 | Median Bucket | Annual trust expense rate from an empirical market-cap bucket table, applied to the trust balance and accrued from IPO date. Based on observed medians across 2,894 SPAC 10-K filings. |
| 5 | Regression Model | Annual rate estimated by the formula rate = 1.84% + 7.19 / trust_size_M, fitted to 1,417 filings with reported expenses (R² = 0.22). Produces a rate for any trust size; tends to run higher than the median-bucket approach. |
| 6 | $10.00 fallback | If none of the above levels yield a usable value, risk calculations use $10.00 per share — the standard SPAC IPO trust principal. This is a conservative floor, not an estimate. |
Trust Expense Estimation
Many SPACs charge trust expenses only annually, so recent quarterly filings may show $0 expenses even when annual charges exist. Expenses reduce the per-share trust value available to redeeming shareholders and must be estimated between filing dates.
Median Bucket Table (Level 4)
Empirical median expense rates by market capitalization, derived from the 10-year SPAC filing study. Medians are lower than regression predictions because the expense rate distribution is right-skewed — a minority of SPACs with unusually high franchise taxes or admin fees pull the mean up.
| Market Cap | Median Annual Rate |
|---|---|
| < $30M | 2.50% |
| $30M – $75M | 1.80% |
| $75M – $150M | 1.30% |
| $150M – $250M | 1.00% |
| $250M – $500M | 0.90% |
| > $500M | 0.80% |
Regression Model (Level 5)
Trust expenses have a significant fixed component (franchise taxes, accounting fees), causing smaller SPACs to bear higher expense rates as a percentage of trust:
expense_rate (%) = 1.8358 + 7.19 / trust_size_M
Fitted on N = 1,417 filings, R² = 0.22. The fixed-cost coefficient (7.19) implies approximately $71,900 per year in fixed charges regardless of trust size. Actual expense rates are highly idiosyncratic — the model is intentionally conservative for risk purposes.
Update Frequency
The pipeline runs nightly after 4 PM ET. New SEC filings are picked up within 24 hours. Trust account balances from the most recent quarterly filing are used; between filings, accrued interest is estimated daily using the prevailing 3-month T-bill rate.
Disclaimer
PrimeRisk data is sourced from public SEC filings and is provided for informational purposes only. It is not investment advice. Trust balances are subject to change based on trust activity, expenses, and interest rates. Always verify against the most recent SEC filing before making investment decisions.