Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic is going public

Richard Branson's space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, is going public, which will make it the first publicly listed human spaceflight company.

First reported by the Wall Street Journal and confirmed by VG, a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. is investing a mighty $800 million in the spaceflight company, which would give it a 49 percent holding.

To sweeten the deal, Social Capital Hedosophia Founder and CEO, Chamath Palihapitiya, will invest an extra $100 million and will become chairman of the merged company.

The WSJ reports that since it was founded in 2004, Virgin Galactic has already raised more than $1 billion — and that mostly came from Branson himself. The company founder notably stepped away from a proposed $1 billion investment in Virgin by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2018 after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Read more...

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