Branson backs New York-listed SPAC aiming to raise $500m
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No stranger to the Spac phenomenon taking equity markets by storm, Richard Branson is backing another New York-listed blank-cheque vehicle.
Virgin Group Acquisition Corp III is looking to raise as much as $500m through a public listing, according to a regulatory filing published on Tuesday.
Founded by Branson the company will be led by Josh Bayliss, chief executive of Virgin Group, and its CIO Evan Lovell.
The special acquisition company (SPAC) will sell 50m units priced at $10 per unit on the New York Stock Exchange. The Branson-backed company said it is looking for targets in one of Virgin’s core sectors, including travel and leisure, financial services and health and wellness among others.
| UPDATED: 16:21, Mon, Mar 8, 2021
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Brexit negotiations with the EU started up again in mid-January, with talks on financial services. After months of wrangling, new rules for trade were finally agreed on Christmas Eve, just days before the year-end deadline. However, in a document spanning over 1,200 pages, there was very little mention of financial services: a sector which accounts for seven percent of the UK’s economy and 10 percent of its tax receipts.
Investors call for decisive action on markets reform after Hill review
FILE PHOTO: The London Stock Exchange Group offices are seen in the City of London, Britain
Investors and corporates are concerned about the pipeline of IPOs this year because of the UK’s “burdensome” requirements.
Just 21 per cent of investors and five per cent of corporates surveyed by Peel Hunt and the Quoted Companies Alliance (QCA) believe the number of listed firms will increase this year.
The UK’s “burdensome listing requirements” and “excessive” regulatory scrutiny are touted as the main causes of a shrinking equity market.
The equity market has helped support listed companies through the pandemic with emergency capital raising. Investors injected £45.9bn of capital into public firms across 333 fundraising of more than £5m in value since the first lockdown last March.
Friday, March 5, 2021
In November 2020, the UK launched a review of its Listing Rules, led by Lord Jonathan Hill, with a specific goal to recommend changes that would improve the UK’s competitiveness as a global listing centre, particularly for high growth and “new economy” businesses. On 3 March 2021, the report, containing
15
recommendations, was published.
Among the recommendations is a proposal to remove the structural impediments in the UK listing rules for special purpose acquisition companies (“
SPACs”), aligning the rules more closely with the rules applicable in the U.S., and to allow companies with dual class share structures to list in the prestigious premium segment of the London Stock Exchange (“
Deliveroo targets $10bn valuation in London IPO Food delivery group would give London market biggest IPO in several years
Thu, Mar 4, 2021, 14:34 Tim Bradshaw
In a private financing in January Deliveroo was valued at about $7 billion, a figure that had already doubled since an Amazon-led investment in 2019. Photograph: PA Wire
Deliveroo is targeting a price tag of as much as $10 billion (€8.3 billion) in its initial public offering, according to people briefed on discussions at the food delivery group, giving London its most valuable new listing for several years.
If the London-based company completes the float at the top of its target range, giving it a market capitalisation of more than £7 billion, Deliveroo would be worth more than Sage, one of the few FTSE 100 tech companies, and The Hut Group, the ecommerce group that did the largest UK IPO for fi