Social Capital Blank-Check IPO Raises $360 Million
Social Capital Launching Second Blank-Check Listing in a Week
(Bloomberg) -- The parent of the blank-check company that helped Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc. go public last year increased the size of a new initial public offering to raise $360 million.
The IPO by Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II follows an last week’s listing by a company with the same sponsors that raised $720 million.
Social Capital initially filed in February for an IPO and had offered 30 million units at $10 each, according to its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company said in a statement Monday that it had increased the size of the sale to 36 million shares, confirming an earlier report by Bloomberg News.
The company said it planned to focus on finding deals with U.S. technology companies. The shares will begin trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol IPOB/U, according to the statement.
The IPO market is showing signs of recovery after a three-week drought that began in mid-March. Lyra Therapeutics Inc. which develops treatment for ear, nose and throat diseases, and gaming software maker Gan Ltd. are also marketing their IPOs this week.
Four U.S. listings -- three special purpose acquisition companies, also known as SPACs or blank-check companies, and a biotechnology firm -- raised a combined $1.34 billion last week. That included last Tuesday’s $720 million listing -- upsized from $600 million -- by the same sponsor of Social Capital.
Social Capital II had been paired with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. III and both had been set to price on March 16, only to be postponed after the biggest one-day stock market drop since 1987, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time. The parent company is a partnership between venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya and longtime investor Ian Osborne.
The first Social Capital Hedosophia blank-check company raised $600 million in 2017 and merged in October with Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.
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