© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket airplane VSS Unity, carrying Richard Branson and crew, begins its ascent to the sting of area above Spaceport America close to Fact or Penalties, New Mexico, U.S. July 11, 2021 in a nonetheless picture from video. Vi
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(Reuters) -Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc on Monday filed to promote as much as $500 million in widespread inventory, a day after the corporate accomplished its first absolutely crewed check flight into area with billionaire founder Richard Branson on board.
Shares in Virgin Galactic reversed premarket features of 8% to commerce down almost 12%, wiping off greater than $1 billion from the corporate’s market capitalization following the share sale announcement.
The sale would account for as much as 4% of Virgin Galactic’s complete excellent shares as of their final shut, in accordance with a Reuters calculation.
Branson’s journey upstaged rival astro-tourism enterprise Blue Origin based by Jeff Bezos, the previous chief govt officer of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:), who’s slated to fly to area on July 20 alongside along with his brother, Mark.
The rivalry popularized because the “billionaire area race” additionally contains SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and is underpinned by optimism that area journey will develop into mainstream with technological developments and falling prices. Swiss funding financial institution UBS estimates area tourism could possibly be a $3 billion annual market by 2030.
That sentiment has additionally led to shares in Virgin Galactic surging almost 84% to date this 12 months.
A Virgin Galactic spokesperson on Sunday informed the Wall Road Journal that Musk had purchased a ticket for his personal area experience with Branson’s firm.
Virgin Galactic has stated it plans at the least two additional check flights of the spaceplane within the months forward earlier than starting common industrial operation in 2022.
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