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Virgin Group’s Branson takes the SPAC route to raising $500m


Virgin Group’s billionaire founder Richard Branson is looking to raise as much as $500 million through a SPAC-backed initial public offering, a regulatory filing showed on Tuesday.

Virgin Group Acquisition Corp III, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, plans to sell 50 million units, composed of shares and warrants, priced at $10 per unit on the New York Stock Exchange.

The firm said in its filing it will be looking for targets to acquire in one of Virgin Group’s core sectors, namely travel and leisure, financial services, health and wellness and renewable energy, among others.

Read more: Trump’s ‘decoupling’ continues as NYSE delists China’s state oil company 

Branson, a serial entrepreneur and a prolific investor, has raised hundreds of millions through multiple blank-cheque companies so far.

In February, VG Acquisition Corp, one of Branson’s SPACs, agreed to take consumer DNA-testing firm 23andMe public through a merger, valuing the merged entity at $3.5 billion.

SPACs are shell companies which raise funds to acquire a private company with the intent of taking it public through a merger at a later date, allowing such companies to enter public markets by sidestepping a traditional IPO.

Credit Suisse is the sole book-running manager for the Virgin Group Acquisition Corp III offering.

  • Reuters

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Sean O'Meara

Sean O'Meara is an Editor at Asia Financial. He has been a newspaper man for more than 30 years, working at local, regional and national titles in the UK as a writer, sub-editor, page designer and print editor. A football, cricket and rugby fan, he has a particular interest in sports finance.

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