And Beyond
Virgin Galactic becomes first public space tourism company on stock exchange
Virgin Galactic makes a flashy debut on NYSE as the first space tourism company
Virgin Galactic stock made its New York Stock Exchange debut Monday as investors welcomed the first publicly traded space tourism company. The Richard Branson company merged last week with Social Capital Hedosophia, a New York investment firm already listed on the NYSE, allowing Virgin Galactic to bypass the standard stock offering process. Social Capital Hedosophia took a 46.5 percent stake, giving Virgin Galactic a valuation of about $1.5 billion.
Initially priced at $12 a share, Virgin Galactic stock traded in that range all day and finished Monday at $11.75.
“Virgin Galactic is making history again today as it becomes the world’s first and only publicly traded commercial human spaceflight company,” chief executive George Whitesides said in a statement. “For the first time, anyone will have the opportunity to invest in a human spaceflight company that is transforming the market.”
The public debut of Virgin Galactic — which takes the SPCE ticker — is a major milestone for the fast-growing space sector, which is projected to be worth $2.7 trillion by 2045, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch. For years, Virgin Galactic has been locked in competition with fellow billionaire-led enterprises, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin. Bezos has said Blue Origin is vying to build a lunar lander for NASA, as it aims to return astronauts to the moon by 2024.
Virgin Galactic, founded in 2004, suffered serious setbacks after a spaceship came apart during a test flight over the Mojave Desert in 2014, killing co-pilot Michael Alsbury. The company has raised more than $1 billion since its inception, but much of it came directly from Branson, a British billionaire. Boeing recently invested $20 million for a 1 percent stake in the company, which said its first commercial flights will commence in mid-2020.
With the capital it raises by going public, Virgin Galactic said it will be able to sustain its operations until it begins commercial flights and starts generating its own revenue. The company estimates it will carry more than 1,500 tourists a year by 2023, according to a regulatory filing, and generate close to $600 mil
lion in revenue, flying from Spaceport America in southern New Mexico.
So far, Virgin has flown its vehicle SpaceShipTwo to the edge of space twice. The first flight, in December, was with two test pilots. The second, in February, had two pilots and a crew member. The five members of the flights were awarded commercial astronaut wings by the FAA.
More than 600 people in 60 countries — including pop star Justin Bieber — have put down more than $80 million in deposits to join Virgin Galactic’s reservation list; that’s $250,000 a ticket.
The company’s customer backlog alone would double the number of people who have ever gone to space. Earlier this month, it unveiled the sleek spacesuits Under Armour built for its passengers.
“With our proprietary spaceflight system, special airspace access at Spaceport America, globally-recognized brand and broad investor interest, we believe Virgin Galactic is ideally positioned to capitalize on the fastgrowing, multibillion-dollar commercial space market and ultimately open space to thousands of new astronauts,” Branson said before trading began Monday, according to a statement.