Business

Oddity, the beauty and tech company that founded Il Makiage and Spoiled Child, has filed to go public as the IPO market warms up.
The Israel-based company plans to trade on the Nasdaq using the ticker ODD.
Since its U.S. launch, Oddity has achieved profitability, and it brought in $395 million in gross revenue and $500 million in sales in 2022, the company said previously.

Oddity Il Makiage
Coutesy: Oddity

Beauty and tech company Oddity, which runs the Il Makiage and Spoiled Child brands, filed to go public Friday as the once-frozen IPO market warms up. 
The Israel-based company plans to trade on the Nasdaq using the ticker ODD. The company didn’t immediately disclose how the offering would be priced in regulatory filings and declined comment when asked when the numbers would be released.

“The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the proposed offering have not yet been determined. The offering is subject to market conditions, and there can be no assurance as to whether or when the offering may be completed, or as to the actual size or terms of the offering,” Oddity said in a press release.
Launched in 2018 by brother and sister duo Oran Holtzman and Shiran Holtzman-Erel, Oddity uses data and AI to develop brands and make tailored product recommendations for customers.
The business is seeking to disrupt a market long dominated by legacy retailers by replacing the in-store experience with product recommendations driven by AI and data. At the heart of its business model is its proprietary technology — including tech developed by a former Israeli defense official — and the billions of data points it has collected from its millions of users.
In the three months that ended March 31, the company saw $165.65 million in revenue, up from $90.41 million in the year-ago period. It reported a net income of $19.59 million, or $5.34 a share, compared with $3.01 million, or 82 cents a share, a year earlier.
Numbers revealed in its regulatory filing show the direct-to-consumer retailer has been profitable on an annual basis since at least 2020.

In fiscal 2022, Oddity brought in $324.52 million in sales and saw a net income of $21.73 million, or $5.94 a share. In the year prior, the retailer saw $222.56 million in revenue and a net income of $13.92 million, or $4.01 a share.
In 2020, it saw $110.64 million in sales and a net income of $11.71 million, or $3.45 a share.
By comparison, when E.L.F. Beauty filed to go public in August 2016, its profits and sales were lower than Oddity’s. E.L.F., a multibrand beauty company, saw $144.94 million in sales in fiscal 2014 and a net loss of $2.88 million. The following year, it saw $191.41 million in sales and a net income of $4.36 million. 
In fiscal 2016, it brought in $229.57 million in sales and a net income of $5.31 million. 
Since going public, E.L.F.’s sales and profits have climbed. During its most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31, it saw $578.84 million in sales and a net income of $61.53 million. 
As a direct-to-consumer retailer, Oddity is seeing the high margins that come along with the strategy. In the three months that ended March 31, its gross margins were 71%, up 4 percentage points from 67% in the year-ago period. Its annual margins have slipped each year since 2020 as the company has made acquisitions and invested in growing the business.
In 2020, Oddity had an annual gross margin of 70%, and in 2021, it dropped 1 percentage point to 69%. In 2022, the retailer’s annual gross margin was 67%, down 2 percentage points from the year-ago period.
As of March 31, the company had more than 4 million active customers, which it defines as a unique customer account that made at least one purchase in the preceding 12-month period.
“We bring visitors to our website, turn visitors into users by asking questions and learning about them, and then leverage the data we have across the platform to convert them into paying customers,” a regulatory filing says.
Oddity has launched internationally, and sales from those markets accounted for about 26% and 27% of its net revenue in fiscal 2022 and 2021, respectively. As of Friday, Oddity has launched in the U.S., Canada, U.K., continental Europe and Australia. It noted it has plans to keep growing that footprint.
The company plans to use proceeds from the IPO to develop and launch new brands. It will also use the funds for working capital, other general corporate purposes and potentially for acquisitions and other investments.
During an interview earlier this year, the company’s global chief financial officer, Lindsay Drucker Mann, a former Goldman Sachs executive, told CNBC that Oddity is making money and growing — even against a tough macroeconomic environment that has proven increasingly risky for purely digital retailers. 
On average, Oddity’s gross sales have doubled each year since 2018, the company has said.
In Spoiled Child’s first year on the market, the new brand brought in $48 million in gross sales, which does not include returns. 
In a regulatory filing, Holtzman, the company’s CEO and co-founder, said the company recruits from the Israeli Defense Forces’ best technology units. Technologists comprise over 40% of its global head count.
“As industry outsiders, we saw many shortcomings in the status quo approach. The empires that incumbents had built over decades had not evolved with the times, resulting in a significant lag in online adoption,” Holtzman wrote in a founder’s letter enclosed in a securities filing.
“Their underinvestment in technology left the category behind the digital curve, despite a consumer who is inherently primed to buy online — spending significant time on social media for beauty content and rapidly shifting dollars online in other categories.”

(L to R): Dr. David Zhang, Oddity’s new head of bioengineering and the chief science officer and co-founder of Revela; Oddity co-founder Shiran Holtzman-Erel; Oddity co-founder and CEO Oran Holtzman; Dr. Evan Zhou, Oddity’s new chief science officer and Revela’s co-founder and CEO.
Alberto Vasari for ODDITY

Beyond developing new products and brands, Oddity is also trying to make beauty products more effective, the company has said. 
In late April, it announced it was investing more than $100 million to acquire biotech startup Revela and open a U.S.-based lab.
The merger brought to Oddity a team of scientists tasked with creating brand-new molecules, using artificial intelligence, that can be used in its cosmetics brands and future lines.
In 2021, Oddity acquired Voyage81, a deep tech AI-based computational imaging startup founded in 2019 by Niv Price, the former head of research and development for one of the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite technological units, along with Dr. Boaz Arad, Dr. Rafi Gidron and Omer Shwartz.
The technology is capable of mapping and analyzing skin and hair features, detecting facial blood flows, and creating melanin and hemoglobin maps using a regular smartphone camera.
The filing comes after a year and a half of a drought in the initial public offering market, which is just beginning to open up and show signs of green shoots. 
Earlier this month, Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava went public, and its shares soared as much as 117% in its market debut. 
“[In 2022] investors didn’t want to go anywhere near IPOs but now that they’re making money again, and with issuers seeing that they can achieve close to decent valuations, I think that’s bringing the people back into the market,” said Matt Kennedy, a senior IPO market strategist for Renaissance Capital.
“The consumer sector does lend itself to these periods where investors can see a business model that they understand, a business that they might be familiar with and also one that is typically profitable or near profitable, preferably that has growth.” More

Southwest Airlines said Friday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the union representing its mechanics, aircraft inspectors, maintenance controllers and training instructors.
The agreement, which covers more than 2,800 employees, would still need to be approved by those workers.
Southwest and the unions representing its pilots and flight attendants are still negotiating labor deals.

A worker directs a Southwest Airlines Co. Boeing 737 passenger jet pushing back from a gate at Midway International Airport (MDW) in Chicago, Illinois, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 11, 2021.
Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines said Friday that it has reached a tentative agreement with the union representing its mechanics, aircraft inspectors, maintenance controllers and training instructors.
The agreement, which covers more than 2,800 employees, would still need to be approved by those workers.

“Our Mechanics & Related Employees work around the clock to safely maintain our aircraft, and we reached a Tentative Agreement that rewards them and helps Southwest maintain an efficient operation,” Adam Carlisle, vice president of labor relations at Southwest, said in a press release.
The union and airline didn’t immediately disclose the details of the agreement but said they would in the coming days.
The union’s “goal and objective is to protect work, raise standards, and increase recognition of AMTs and related professionals,” said the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association’s national president, Bret Oestreich.
Meanwhile, negotiations for new contracts between Southwest and the unions representing its pilots and flight attendants are still pending.
Earlier this month, leaders at Transport Workers Union of America 556, which represents Southwest flight attendants, said they rebuffed a tentative agreement that would have allowed for a membership vote. The union said that federal mediators and the parties involved will not reconvene until Jan. 16.

“We are proud of the Agreement in Principle that was reached by the Southwest and TWU 556 Negotiating Teams, and we’re incredibly disappointed to learn that TWU 556’s Executive Board voted it down,” Southwest’s Carlisle said in a statement.
Last week, the local’s executive board told members: “Your TWU Local 556 Executive Board did not make this decision lightly. As Members ourselves, we are just as eager to vote on and ratify a worthy Tentative Agreement.”
Apart from the aviation industry, workers across the board have been striving for better compensation and better work rules, with many of their efforts culminating in strikes. Despite strike authorizations at some airline unions, such actions are extremely rare in the industry and require federal involvement.
Beginning on Friday in Seattle, nearly 3,500 workers at some Starbucks stores at more than 150 locations across the U.S. pledged to strike following a public dispute between the coffee giant and the union representing baristas regarding allegations that the company prohibited Pride Month decorations in its cafes.
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters has approved a strike authorization at UPS should the union and the company not reach a new labor agreement. The current national contract is scheduled to expire after July 31.
Southwest shares were down nearly 1% on Friday afternoon.
–CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this article. More

Burger King’s plan to revive its U.S. business is already showing signs of improved franchisee profitability, on top of stronger sales.
“We’ve moved sales back in the right direction, but we’ve already started to move franchise profitability meaningfully higher,” Josh Kobza, CEO of parent company Restaurant Brands International, told CNBC.

Restaurant Brands also owns Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Firehouse Subs and Canadian coffee chain Tim Hortons.
The burger chain in September unveiled the $400 million turnaround plan it crafted with franchisees after several years of disappointing sales. In 2020, Burger King slid to the No. 3 burger chain in the U.S. in terms of sales, losing ground to Wendy’s after it launched breakfast nationwide. And the gulf between Burger King and its top rival McDonald’s has only widened.
But Burger King is trying to launch a comeback, with its parent company pouring money into restaurant renovations and advertising. The chain is also taking steps to improve restaurant operations and menu offerings and doubling down on the Whopper, the longtime anchor of its menu.
In the first quarter, Burger King’s U.S. same-store sales grew 8.7%, an early sign that the strategy might be working. A year earlier, its quarterly same-store sales were roughly flat.
But the chain is also trying to make sure the turnaround is sustainable and doesn’t just boost sales for a few quarters before lagging again.

One of the longer-term aims of the turnaround is to improve franchise profitability, an important indicator of the chain’s overall success. Higher profits for operators mean they have money to reinvest back into their existing restaurants or new locations, driving more sales for the franchisor.
That’s good for the restaurant chain, too: Franchisees that struggle to stay afloat are a drag on the business and typically result in closures, in addition to lower system sales at their lagging restaurants.
So far this year, two Burger King franchisees have filed for bankruptcy. The first franchisee to file for bankruptcy, Toms King Holdings, sold most of its locations at auction for $33 million in April. Burger King is trying to push the other operator, Meridian Restaurants, to sell its restaurants, according to a report from Restaurant Business Online. Meridian has already closed more than two dozen restaurants after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Restaurant Brands executives said in early May that they expect to close 300 to 400 underperforming locations this year, although that depends on how quickly the business can bounce back. Burger King typically closes several hundred U.S. locations every year.
“This is the seminal moment in time for us to figure out which restaurants have long-term viability,” Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC. “There’s a few out there that don’t, and we need to take those off our owners’ backs so they don’t have to bear the losses and can put that money back into growing their asset base and their restaurants that they do own.”
“It’s all part of the normal process,” he added. “And we’re going to be bigger, stronger and be able to grow faster in the future if we do that.”
The chain also recently changed its expansion policy for franchisees, limiting most operators to footprints of under 50 restaurants and requiring local ownership.
Investors seem relatively optimistic about the company’s future. Shares of Restaurant Brands have risen 16% this year, giving the company a market value of $23.5 billion. The S&P 500 is up 13% in the same time period.
“I think that investors appreciate the fact that RBI is coming to the table to invest money into the brand to see its resurgence,” Curtis said. More

Some organized Starbucks stores will strike across the U.S. at more than 150 locations starting Friday in Seattle, after the union representing baristas claimed some cafes were not allowed to put up Pride decorations.
The coffee giant said its policy on decorating has not changed and that it unwaveringly supports the LGBTQ+ community.
Workers United has alleged instances in at least 22 states when workers have not been able to decorate. It says it filed an unfair labor practice charge over the alleged change in policy.

Marchers with Starbucks pass through the landmark intersection of Hollywood and Highland during the annual Pride Parade in Los Angeles, June 12, 2022.
David Mcnew | Getty Images

Some organized Starbucks stores will strike across the U.S. starting Friday in Seattle after the coffee giant and the union representing baristas publicly clashed over claims that the company was not allowing Pride month decor in cafes.
The union, Starbucks Workers United, said more than 150 stores representing nearly 3,500 workers have pledged to join the strikes, which will take place over the next week. More than two dozen additional stores are voting on strike authorizations and the count could rise to nearly 200 stores by the end of the week, the union said.

Last week, the union alleged dozens of U.S. stores were not allowing employees to decorate for Pride month, accusations that suggested a wave of backlash against LGBTQ+ inclusion had reached a perceived liberal bastion in corporate America. Starbucks said it had not revised its guidelines for store decorations.
“There has been no change to any policy on this matter and we continue to encourage our store leaders to celebrate with their communities including for U.S. Pride month in June,” the company said last week, adding that it unwaveringly supports the LGBTQ+ community. Local store leaders and employees can make their own decorating decisions within guidelines laid out in the company’s security and safety manuals.
In response to the strike pledges, the company added, “Workers United continues to spread false information about our benefits, policies and negotiation efforts—a tactic used to seemingly divide our partners and deflect from their failure to respond to bargaining sessions for more than 200 stores.” 
In a post on its website, Starbucks shared a June 14 letter from its VP of Partner Resources, May Jensen, to Workers United President Lynne Fox demanding the union “cease from knowingly misleading partners.”
Workers United has alleged instances in at least 22 states when workers have not been able to decorate, pointing to social media accounts where workers have documented their claims. The union said it has filed an unfair labor practice charge against Starbucks over what it alleges is a change in policy. Some of the strikes in the coming days are tied to that claim.

Not all of the stores that will strike had issues related to Pride decor.
Parker Davis, a 21-year-old barista in San Antonio, Texas, works at a store that has not had a dispute around Pride decor but will be a part of the strikes.
“There’s a large percentage of partners at my store who are part of the LGBTQ community, and who feel that Starbucks’ continued actions with trying to limit or take down pride decorations just doesn’t make sense with what the company has done in the past,” Davis said.
Davis told CNBC he expects several picketers, but said it was unclear if the store would be able to open during the strike.
The public back-and-forth over decorations to celebrate Pride month comes as major brands including Target and Bud Light have been targeted for supporting the LGBTQ+ community. In both of those cases, the companies faced opposition from conservative consumers to partnerships with or merchandise for transgender people — and then saw backlash from more liberal customers for perceived deference to the critics.
In Oklahoma, workers were told restrictions on decorating were out of a concern for safety after recent attacks at Target stores, the union said.
The Starbucks workers are also striking over claims that Starbucks is dragging its feet on negotiating contracts. 
“Good faith bargaining looks like both sides providing proposals and trying to meet in the middle — Starbucks is not willing to do that,” Workers United said in a statement. “Despite having our non-economic proposals for over 8 months and our economic proposals for over a month now, Starbucks has failed to tentatively agree to a single line of a single proposal or provide a single counter proposal. What Starbucks is doing is not bargaining, it’s stalling.”
The strike “is important to me because it sends the message that we are not going to stand idly by while Starbucks continues to delay contract negotiations and continues to participate in union busting,” Davis said.
For its part, Starbucks maintains Workers United has responded to only a quarter of the more than 450 bargaining sessions Starbucks has proposed for individual stores nationally, to date, and said it is committed to progressing negotiations toward a first contract.
The roastery where the strikes will start Friday has not had any disputes over Pride decorations, but is also striking in solidarity.
“The roastery wants to show solidarity with all workers that have been discriminated against in the company,” Mari Cosgrove, a 28-year-old barista at the Seattle location, told CNBC.
“Frankly, it feels like an attack when these flags are taken down,” Cosgrove said. “The partners in these stores really appreciate being able to be seen and feel like this is a community space for them. Starbucks has really prided itself on being a third place, including for its workers.”
More than 300 company-owned stores have voted to unionize since the first filing took place in August of 2021, but Starbucks and Workers United have yet to agree to a contract.
Starbucks has more than 9,000 company-owned locations in the U.S.
— CNBC’s Amelia Lucas contributed to this report. More

Norfolk Southern supervisors didn’t address an engineer’s safety concerns about a train that ended up derailing in February in East Palestine, Ohio, according to preliminary findings released by the NTSB.
The derailment, which happened in early February, spilled toxic chemicals, triggering health and environmental concerns among residents and officials.

Cleanup efforts continue on portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 9, 2023.
Gene J. Puskar | AP

Norfolk Southern supervisors didn’t address an engineer’s safety concerns before a train loaded with toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio in February, according to preliminary findings released Thursday from a National Transportation Safety Board investigation.
The day before the train derailed, an engineer in Decatur, Illinois, had voiced his concern about the size of the train to the yardmaster, according to the NTSB. But the engineer told the agency that he was told, “Well, this is what they want,” the findings showed.

“If you talk to the manager, they said this train was 100% rule compliant. To me, in my opinion, you know, you got 32% of the weight on the headend. Twenty percent in the middle and 40% weight on the rearend. So, to me, that’s why we reported that to the yardmaster and like I said this is what they want,” the Decatur engineer said.
Norfolk Southern responded by saying that the Federal Railroad Administration has not set out regulatory requirements on train configuration, and that the train met its internal policies regarding train configuration at the time of the East Palestine derailment. 
“Every accident is an opportunity to learn. We are collaborating with labor leadership and our craft employees to enhance safety, we’ve brought in an outside safety consultant, and we are committed to leading the industry,” Norfolk Southern spokesman Connor Spielmaker told CNBC in an email.
The NTSB released its findings before it began a two-day hearing on the derailment Thursday. The hearing is intended to address preparedness during the initial emergency response, the decision-making process regarding venting and burning the vinyl chloride tank cars, and the examination of freight car bearing failure modes and wayside detection systems.
On Feb. 3, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed, releasing toxic chemicals into the environment near Ohio’s border with Pennsylvania. Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw has pledged support for residents of East Palestine, Ohio, although critics have said he hasn’t gone far enough.

A duration of three minutes to three minutes and 45 seconds is adequate for maintenance personnel to inspect a train car, the Transportation Communications Union told NTSB in a separate statement. But the union said that Norfolk Southern has decreased the average inspection time to around one minute following the company’s new train scheduling strategies, which TCU believes is insufficient for a comprehensive inspection of each train.
The company responded that it doesn’t have a policy limiting time for car inspections.
Norfolk Southern took further exception with the union’s allegation, saying that the current average car inspection time is approximately two minutes. The company said that is one minute longer than the average that was set by professional craft railroaders performing the same inspection and offered as a guide to crews.
“It is not accurate to say NS has ‘reduced’ the standard amount of time for a car inspection since the implementation of PSR. What we have done is documented and standardized what a proper inspection looks like, and the time it should take a qualified railroader to complete that inspection,” Spielmaker said. More

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has offered to buy a minority stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Washington Wizards and other Washington, D.C., sports teams.
The National Basketball Association said it is still reviewing the deal with the Qatar Investment Authority. 
The fund offered to buy a roughly 5% stake in Monumental as part of a $4.05 billion deal, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. 

Russell Westbrook, who played for the Washington Wizards in the 2020-21 NBA season, reacts prior to playing against the Denver Nuggets at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., February 17, 2021.
Will Newton | Getty Images

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund has offered to buy a minority stake in Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the parent company of the Washington Wizards and other Washington, D.C., sports teams, the National Basketball Association said Thursday.
The NBA is still reviewing the deal with the Qatar Investment Authority, league spokesperson Mike Bass said in a statement to CNBC.

The fund offered to buy a roughly 5% stake in Monumental as part of a $4.05 billion deal, a person familiar with the matter told CNBC. 
The proposed agreement was first reported by Sportico. It is believed to be the first time the government of Qatar is investing in U.S. professional sports. 
The NBA in November began to allow sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors to buy noncontrolling stakes in the league’s teams. Under a new policy, a foreign fund can buy up to 20% of an NBA team.
“In accordance with the policy, if approved, QIA would have a passive, minority investment in the team, with no involvement in its operations or decision-making,” Bass said in the league’s statement. 
In addition to the Wizards, Monumental owns the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals and the Women’s National Basketball Association team, the Washington Mystics. 

The company also owns the Capital City Go-Go of the NBA G League and recently took over the media outlet formerly known as NBC Sports Washington, now Monumental Sports Network.
Monumental declined to comment. More

Moderna on Thursday submitted an application for FDA approval of the biotech company’s updated Covid vaccine for the fall. 
Moderna said the submission is based on the FDA’s recommendation last week that vaccine makers update their jabs to target omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, the dominant strain of the virus nationwide.
Moderna and rivals Pfizer and Novavax already began to develop versions of their vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 months before the FDA’s recommendation.

A vial and a medical syringe seen displayed in front of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Moderna biotechnology company’s logos.
Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images

Moderna on Thursday applied for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of the biotech company’s updated Covid vaccine for the fall. 
The shot targets omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, the dominant strain of the virus nationwide. 

Moderna said the submission is based on the FDA’s recommendation last week that vaccine makers update their jabs to target XBB.1.5, which is one of the most immune-evasive Covid strains to date. 
Moderna and rivals Pfizer and Novavax already began to develop versions of their vaccines targeting XBB.1.5 months before the FDA’s recommendation.
All three companies are expected to make vaccines available to Americans in time for the fall, pending the FDA’s approval.
“The agility of our mRNA platform has enabled us to update Spikevax, Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, to target XBB variants with speed and clinical rigor,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement. 
The FDA will review Moderna’s available efficacy and safety data on the shot to decide whether to approve it for the fall. 

Preclinical trial data on mice suggests a monovalent vaccine targeting XBB.1.5 produces a more robust immune response against the currently circulating XBB variants than the company’s authorized bivalent shot targeting the BA.4 and BA.5 strains, according to a Moderna presentation last week. 
Clinical trial data on more than 100 people similarly demonstrates the monovalent XBB.1.5 vaccine produces protective antibodies against all XBB variants. All trial participants had previously received four Covid vaccine doses.
The U.S. is expected to shift Covid vaccine distribution to the private sector as soon as the fall. That means Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax will sell their updated jabs directly to health care providers rather than to the government.
It’s unclear how many people will take the new shots.
Only about 17% of the U.S. population has received Pfizer and Moderna’s latest boosters since they were approved in September, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More

Virgin Galactic has successfully raised $300 million via an “at the market” offering of common stock, the company disclosed in a securities filing Thursday.
The space tourism company aims to raise an additional $400 million through a subsequent stock offering.
Virgin Galactic plans to use the funds to develop and expand its spacecraft fleet.

Carrier aircraft VMS Eve releases spacecraft VSS Unity before firing its rocket engine during the Unity 25 spaceflight on May 25, 2023.
Virgin Galactic

Virgin Galactic has successfully raised $300 million via an “at the market” offering of common stock, the company disclosed in a securities filing Thursday.
Now, the space tourism company aims to raise an additional $400 million through a subsequent stock offering, as it looks to fund the development and expansion of its spacecraft fleet.

Shares of Virgin Galactic have rallied since the company announced plans to launch its first commercial spaceflight by the end of this month.

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The company opened the first fundraiser August 4, saying at the time that the funds “would be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital, general and administrative matters, development of its spaceship fleet and other infrastructure to scale its commercial operations.”
Virgin Galactic had cash and securities totaling $874 million at the end of the first quarter, it reported in May.
The company has a single carrier aircraft, VMS Eve, and one spacecraft, VSS Unity, which it has said can conduct flights as frequently as once a month.
But Virgin Galactic’s growth hinges on its ability to expand its fleet with the Delta-class vehicles it is developing, and the common stock offerings are a way to stop gap its cash burn until those spacecrafts are flying. More