The world’s largest investment banks have pulled in over $3.4bn advising on so-called blank cheque companies this year — a record and over five times the amount they made in any year over the past decade.

The surge in special purpose acquisition companies — also dubbed blank cheque firms or Spacs for short — has been a big theme of 2020. Spacs raise money by listing on the stock market and then use the funds from shareholders to fund new acquisitions.