The Multibillion-Dollar SPAC Risk Driving Off Goldman, BofA (2)

As an army of blank-check companies gathered $250 billion on their march to public stock markets over the past two years, banks handling the fundraisings earned windfalls and lavished star dealmakers with some of their firm’s largest bonuses.

But this year, many of those special-purpose acquisition vehicles, or SPACs, are struggling to seal the deals that are their reason for being -- merging with private companies. And this month, top banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. pulled backfrom helping them hunt for targets.

The problem: US regulators proposed holding banks liable if the SPACs ...