(Reuters) -Asset managers Owl Rock Capital Group and Dyal Capital Partners on Wednesday agreed to merge and go public through Altimar Acquisition Corp, a blank-check company. The combined company, to be known as Blue Owl Capital Inc, would be valued at about $12.5 billion managing over $45 billion in assets and will list on the NYSE after close of the deal first half of 2021. The deal is expected to provide about $1.8 billion in gross proceeds, of which $275 million will be provided by Altimar through cash held in a trust and $1.5 billion will come from investors, including ICONIQ Capital, CH Investment Partners and Liberty Mutual Investments among others. Altimar, which is a special purpose acquisition company, raised $250 million in its IPO in October this year. A SPAC is a shell company which raises funds in an IPO with the aim of acquiring a private company, which then becomes public as result of the merger. SPACs have emerged as one of Wall Street’s most popular investment vehicles in 2020, with over 200 SPACs raising more than $70 billion. Shares of Altimar are up 9.7%.