With the bluest of the blue-chip stocks singing the blues, it's no surprise that some of the most speculative stock offerings seem DOA.

It was just about a year ago that I wrote about the craze of special-purpose acquisition companies, known as SPACs. These companies go public with no operating business, only the promise that one will soon be acquired.

Investors must show their faith in management and little else, except a promise that their money, held in trust, will be returned in two years if no deal is made.

By early 2008, a flock of SPACs touched Colorado. Energy industry legend Cort Dietler teamed with CEO Patrick McDonald for National Energy Resources Acquisition, which planned to raise $115 million. Mark Wattles, the owner of Ultimate Electronics, formed Wattles Acquisition to raise $230 million. Former Gov. Bill Owens served on the boards of two East Coast blank-check companies.

Much has happened in the markets in a year, to put it mildly. As a result, almost nothing has happened with the SPACs.

"We're waiting for the capital markets to begin to cooperate, and at that time, we'll consider launching the offering," says McDonald. "At the moment, we're in sort of a holding pattern."

National Energy Resources hasn't updated its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission since March, about four months before Dietler's death. Similarly, Wattles Acquisition hasn't updated its filings since late April. (Wattles didn't respond to requests for comment.)

One of the companies where Owens has a board seat - Kanders Acquisition - notified the SEC last November it was terminating its $400 million offering. The other, Highlands Acquisition, raised $135 million in October 2007, but still hasn't found a suitable target.

"With Kanders, it was just a function of changes in capital markets," Owens said Tuesday. "With Highlands, we're still in an active acquisitions mode and we're looking at a number of potential acquisitions."

Colorado companies who are possible SPAC targets are getting disappointed. Denver's BlueCreek Energy, an exploration company, had a deal to sell itself to Philadelphia-based SPAC Dekania for $80 million, including the assumption of $25 million in debt.

Instead, the deal "exploded" this month, said BlueCreek chairman Kevin Norris, and Dekania plans to dissolve.

"A lot of those SPACs were invested in by hedge funds," Norris said. "Given the environment, there's a lot of pressure on the SPACs to break the trust and give the funds back."