Space tourism firm goes public

Branson’s Virgin Galactic begins trading on New York Stock Exchange.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings became the first space-tourism business to go public as it began trading Monday on the New York Stock Exchange with a market value of about $1 billion.

The listing, carried out through a merger with a shell investment company that was already trading, secures vital new funding for Branson as the British entrepreneur competes with fellow billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in what’s been dubbed “the new space race.”

Investors are being asked to back a project that’s already been running for 15 years without yet achieving a first commercial launch, and which came close to folding after a fatal crash during a 2014 test flight.

Virgin Galactic combined last week with the investment firm Social Capital Hedosophia rather than conduct an initial public offering.

That avoided a costly investor roadshow and the challenge of selling shares in such a company likely to be perceived as high risk by many.

The new entity climbed 5.3% to $12.41 at 9:32 a.m. in New York on Monday, its first day trading under the ticker SPCE. The shares rose 11% Friday after the combination was completed, handing Virgin Galactic more than $450 million in primary proceeds.

Virgin Galactic is one of a trio of billionaire-backed space startups, each tapping different technologies. Branson is using an aircraft to carry a spaceship to high altitudes, where it blasts away, while Amazon.com Inc. founder Bezos’s Blue Origin relies on more-conventional rockets and Tesla Inc. chief Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. deploys reusable launchers.