Stocks & Equities

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit to go public via $3.2B SPAC deal

Posted by Darrell Etherington, techcrunch.com

on Tuesday, 24 August 2021 9:05

Virgin Orbit is set to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisitions company (SPAC), the company has confirmed. The deal values the combined enterprise at $3.2 billion, and will provide Virgin Orbit with $483 million in cash at close, including a $100 million PIPE. The combined company will trade under the ticker VORB on the Nasdaq if and when the transaction concludes.

In June, CNBC reported that such a deal was in the works, and it’s been a popular exit option for private space startups in recent months. Rocket Lab’s SPAC merger was just approved, for instance, and it’ll begin trading on Wednesday, and Richard Branson’s other space company, Virgin Galactic, was the first big SPAC deal that ushered in the craze...read more.

End of housing market on ‘steroids’ to hit growth: Macquarie

Posted by Ian Vandaelle, bnnbloomberg.ca

on Tuesday, 24 August 2021 8:43

Macquarie Group is warning the slowdown in Canadian housing activity may have a material impact on the country’s economic growth.

David Doyle, the head of North America economics and strategy at Macquarie, said in an interview Tuesday the decline in existing home sales is likely to weigh on growth through the back half of the year by about one percentage point due to the domestic economy’s outsized reliance on the housing sector.

“I don’t foresee a significant pullback in price imminently, interest rates are likely to remain low, and when the [Bank of Canada] does start to hike, probably will be very gradual in its approach,” he said…read more.

Justin Sun Buys NFT of a Rock for More Than Half a Million Dollars

Posted by Neal Freyman, morningbrew.com

on Monday, 23 August 2021 10:10

Actually, 31-year-old crypto mogul Justin Sun spent $611,710 to buy an EtherRock NFT yesterday. And he can’t even take it home and pet it. Because it’s literally just a Clipart of a rock.

What’s going on: EtherRocks are one of the latest crazes in the world of NFTs (non-fungible tokens), which allow people to acquire ownership of digital assets using blockchain technology.

So why would you want to own one? The same reason you’d buy a rare baseball card—the originals are scarce and some people believe they have tremendous value. EtherRock was one of the earliest NFT projects from way back in 2017…read more.

Delta variant may mute Q3 earnings performance at the Big Six banks

Posted by Paul Bagnell, bnnbloomberg.ca

on Monday, 23 August 2021 9:47

For the past two quarters, Canada’s big banks have crushed earnings expectations and their shares have enjoyed sharp post-earnings rallies. They also began releasing large sums of money previously set aside for loans that could potentially go bad – all of which flowed directly to the bottom line.

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 Delta variant, however, may slow down that trend when the banks report fiscal third-quarter results next week.

“When we exited Canadian bank earnings season in early June,” wrote Bank of Nova Scotia banking analyst Meny Grauman in a recent report, “we thought that by the time Q3 reporting rolled around, COVID would be a fading memory.”…read more.

Facebook: Novi Digital Wallet Is ‘Ready to Come to Market’

Posted by Nelson Wang, coindesk.com

on Friday, 20 August 2021 15:58

Facebook said Wednesday that the global payments system is seriously flawed and that the social media giant can fix it.

“Change is long overdue,” Facebook’s David Marcus wrote in a blog post.

Marcus, the former PayPal chief hired in 2018 to lead Facebook’s blockchain efforts, said Novi, the digital wallet subsidiary he oversees, is “ready to come to market.”…read more.