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Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to Go Public by Year-End

Reuters

   The company will list its shares as part of a merger with Social
   Capital Hedosophia Holdings, a special purpose acquisition company
   (SPAC), which will also take a 49% stake in Virgin Galactic for about
   $800 million, a source who worked on the deal told Reuters.

   The SPAC deal allows Virgin Galactic to go public sooner, compared with
   a traditional initial public offering, which the company might have
   considered in six to nine months following its first commercial flight,
   the source said.

   "They were working on this deal for the best part of nine months. Part
   of the work was getting Branson comfortable with the idea of going
   public via a SPAC, a concept which he wasn't familiar with at the start
   of the process," according to the source.

   Branson founded Virgin Galactic in 2004 to cash in on burgeoning demand
   for satellite launch services and, eventually, space travel, a market
   long dominated by industry stalwarts such as United Launch Alliance - a
   partnership between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin Corp.

   But since its early days, his ambitious timeline for taking customers
   into space has suffered delays and setbacks.

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