, Columnist
Ex-SPACs Face Hellish Battle to Avoid the Abyss
Keeping the lights on requires some complicated financial contortions.
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When Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month, the satellite-launch firm joined more than half a dozen businesses that went public during the “Everything Bubble” of 2020-2022 only to run out of money this year.
Once, hurrying to join the stock market by merging with a listed special purpose acquisition company seemed like a good way to raise heaps of cash and for insiders to get rich. But SPACs have become a poisoned chalice, above all for the retail investors who went along for the ride.