Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic, sold another stake in his space tourism company this week, worth $300 million (€254.3 million), and scrapped another large stake to fund his other projects.
The sale follows a diminishing reassessment of the company by some Wall Street analysts, justified by a “lack of flights planned” as Virgin Galactic begins a maintenance period that will last several months.
Branson, through his Virgin Investments group, sold 10.4 million shares of Virgin Galactic this week at various prices ranging from $25.75 to $34.39 per share, according to an SEC filing. In total, it invested 300 million dollars (254.3 million euros), according to information from the “InsiderScore” portal.
The sale of the stake is Branson’s third since Virgin Galactic went public through SPAC in 2019, with previous sales of $504.5 million (€427.6 million) and $150.3 million (€127.4 million) in May 2020 and April 2021, respectively.
Branson has recovered more than $950 million (€805.3 million) from his investment in the space company through stock sales since it debuted on the stock exchange. In addition, Virgin Galactic raised more than $1 billion (€847.7 million) in investments before it went public, according to an SEC filing.
