(Reuters) – Venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya this week sold his remaining personal stake in Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc, a space tourism company he helped take public in 2019, for around $213 million, regulatory filings showed on Friday.
Palihapitiya sold 6.2 million shares, leaving him with about 15.8 million shares in Virgin Galactic, where he remains chairman. The remaining 6.6% stake in the company is through an investment firm, which is in partnership with British investor Ian Osborne.
Shares of Virgin Galactic were down nearly 17% in early trading on Friday.
Palihapitiya said in a Twitter post on Dec. 16 that he had sold 3.8 million Virgin Galactic shares to manage his liquidity.
Representatives of Palihapitiya and Virgin Galactic did not immediately respond to requests for further comment on the share sale.
Palihapitiya’s first SPAC merged with Virgin Galactic in 2019 allowing the space tourism company to go public with a $2.3 billion market capitalization, without itself launching an IPO.
He has been one of the most prolific sponsors of SPACs, merging them with a range of companies including home-selling platform Opendoor Technologies Inc.
(Reporting by Sohini Podder in Bengaluru, Jessica DiNapli and Joshua Franklin; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
