The bearded one hopes to fly high!

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TheGreenGoblin
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The bearded one hopes to fly high!

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Mon Oct 28, 2019 3:25 pm

Sir Richard Branson chose a fortuitous day to be at the New York Stock Exchange for the flotation of Virgin Galactic. The market climbed into Bull Market territory on the rumour that Trump was about to agree a trade deal with China. Of course with Trump the term bull might refer to something else altogether.

Richard Branson.JPG

Richard Branson goes public with some extravagant promises to keep
After 15 years of making extravagant but unkept promises to fly more than 600 “future astronauts” to space, Richard Branson must now please an entirely new group of people who are usually much shorter on patience: shareholders.

Following the completion last week of a merger with Social Capital Hedosophia (SCH), the British billionaire’s Virgin Galactic suborbital “space line” will begin trading under its own name on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday.

Going public now is an unusual move for a space tourism company that hasn’t flown a singlet tourist to space since Branson announced the SpaceShipTwo program in 2004. Some might see it has putting the cart before the horse.

SpaceShipTwo has flown only two suborbital flights to date. Powered flights total a mere nine, with one failure. Commercial missions originally promised for 2008 will now take place sometime next year. Suborbital space tourism doesn’t even exist as an industry..

Adding to the investors’ concerns: flying aboard rocket-powered vehicles is inherently dangerous. Boosters have a tendency to explode, wander off course and otherwise fail spectacularly. The SpaceShipTwo program has already claimed three lives in a test stand explosion, and one more in an in-flight breakup.
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

G-CPTN
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Re: The bearded one hopes to fly high!

#2 Post by G-CPTN » Mon Oct 28, 2019 6:46 pm

I recall when my father bought shares in Townsend Thoresen - which entitled him to preferential rates for tickets for cross-Channel ferry trips.

CremeEgg
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Re: The bearded one hopes to fly high!

#3 Post by CremeEgg » Mon Oct 28, 2019 8:15 pm

Beardy must have changed his tune. Eons ago I bought Virgin shares - never did anything and after a few years Beardy got fed up with the snooping into his companies affairs by the Stock Exchange and took the company back into his private hands. In fairness to the guy he paid us all what we paid in the first place. Don't ever remember any dividends and certainly little or no capital growth.

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