(Repeating item that initially moved on Friday)

By Phil Wahba

NEW YORK, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The blank-check companies known as SPACs, which have raised billions but not yet made the acquisitions that money is supposed to be spent on, are in a race against time.

The success of these 57 companies in spending the $11.3 billion they have raised in stock flotations may determine whether such special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) will be in the thick of things when the IPO market recovers.

A special purpose acquisition company is a shell organization that uses money raised in an initial public offering to buy another business. That business then becomes publicly traded through the SPAC once shareholders approve the deal.

After an IPO, a SPAC typically has two years to make an acquisition, or it has to return the money to investors. Since the last boom year for SPAC IPOs was 2007, most of these companies have to seal a deal in the next year.

The credit crisis has sidelined many potential rival bidders, including private equity firms, for acquisition targets, giving these cash-rich SPACs a potential opening.

"The stars are aligned in terms of targets," said Peter Weprin, managing director in the capital markets group at Cowen and Company LLC. "You are one of the only games in town with all that cash."

But with the majority of IPOs performing poorly in 2008, SPAC investors have been voting down one acquisition proposal after another.