Virgin Orbit’s would-be white knight and a $200 million rescue that fell flat

by Kevin Krolicki and Joey Roulette

( Reuters )- Last month, as the Virgin Orbit of Richard Branson’s’s fortunes crashed to Earth, a little-known investor by the name of Matthew Brown showed up and offered to save the space for$ 200 million.

According to related articles and internet markets reviewed by Reuters and three parties with knowledge of the debate, Virgin Orbit Chief Executive Dan Hart had obtained board support for a tentative agreement with the 33-year-old Texas-based investor within two days of Brown’s’s contact.

In an email dated March 21 that was seen by Reuters, Hart stated that” We had our council meeting this morning with commitment to move forward, so I now have the buy-in I need.”

The 750 employees of Virgin Orbit, the majority of whom had been furloughed to save money when the company halted its operations earlier in March, received a cheerful note from Hart in an email to staff on the same day. Hart stated in the internet that the Long Beach, California-based business may start an” incremental continuation” of operations.

There wouldn’t be a complete continuation of business.

According to a cease-and-desist email reviewed by Reuters and the three men, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation, Virgin Orbit severed communication with Brown and threatened to take legal actions against him if he revealed personal information about the possible choice.

A glass into Virgin Orbit’s’s unsuccessful attempt to avoid bankruptcy is provided by the previously unidentified details of a price that was never completed. The business, which had a market value of$ 3.8 billion in late 2022 and included the U.S. military as one of its largest clients, filed for Chapter 11 this week.

A request for comment on the dialogue with Brown was made to Hart, a former Boeing senior. 75 % of Virgin Orbit’s’s owner, Virgin Group, also declined to comment on this story. As Virgin Orbit looks for a buyer in debt, the team is lending money to the dish release company.

In response to an interview Brown gave on CNBC on March 23 in which he claimed to be in” final discussions” to close a$ 200 million investment in Virgin Orbit within 24 hours, the legal notice was issued. According to the notice from the company’s’s attorney, Brown violated a non-disclosure understanding and overstated the nature of the deals.

The soaring stock price of Virgin Orbit increased by more than 60 % the day following Brown’s’s CNBC face.

The TV audience came after a Reuters article that claimed Brown was close to an investment offer in the business, citing the phrase strip signed by Hart and Brown and the anticipated end date of March 24.

According to the three men, when the enterprise cut communication with Brown on March 25, it had discovered problems with his trust. One claimed that managers discovered proof that refuted information Brown had given about his experience.

Brown refuted claims that he had misrepresented himself in conversations with Reuters over the past year. He claimed that Virgin Orbit had not given him the details he needed before feeling confident enough to transfer the$ 200 million into an escrow account as specified in the term sheet. Brown did not provide the details of the information he was looking for, and Reuters was unable to freely confirm his claim.

Brown continued,” I absolutely, 100 % had the money.”

” LYING LOW BELOW THE RADAR ,” as they say.

Reuters discovered obvious inconsistencies in a number of important parts of Brown’s’s claims about the businesses he claims to have worked for, his opportunities, and his associates on CNBC or LinkedIn.

Brown admitted to Reuters that he didn’t own any Virgin Orbit stock and that the short-lived share price increase that followed had not been profitable for him. A” Matthew Brown” was listed as holding 238 shares at the time of the company’s’s bankruptcy filing on Tuesday. On Thursday, those shares were worthwhile$ 48.

The listed investment, according to Brown, is a numerous Matthew Brown.

Reuters was unable to locate business registrations for Hogshead Spouter in Hong Kong and Kona Private Capital in Hawaii, two businesses where Brown claimed to have served as an assistant or companion on LinkedIn.

Without giving any specifics, Brown claimed to have worked for onshore companies. He claimed he was unaware of Kona and Hogshead’s’s registered addresses.

Brown claimed to have worked with OpenAI in an audience with CNBC. According to an OpenAI spokesman, it has never collaborated with him.

When questioned about this, Brown responded that he preferred to” lay low below the radar” when structuring talks to safeguard investor security.

Brown’s’s LinkedIn profile featured an endorsement from Dan McDermott, who was identified as a former Hogshead Spouter coworker and an ex-official with the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, at the time of his Virgin Orbit process. The main banks claimed it had no history of hiring McDermott.

McDermott declined to respond to inquiries about his history when contacted by LinkedIn.

Brown claimed that from 2008 to 2021, starting at the age of 18, he managed$ 6 billion while serving as a senior consultant for the Houston-based private cash firm Woods Family Office. Eric Woods is listed as the principal on the community website, but the work did not respond to a request for comment.

Eric Woods responded,” I have nothing to say, and my family office doesn’t either ,” when questioned about his company on LinkedIn. ” While Matt is an advisor, we are not connected to Matt’s’s purchase of Virgin, which I assume this is about ,” he continued.

Both Woods’ and McDermott’s’s accounts were deleted after a Reuters research to LinkedIn about whether they were legitimate. LinkedIn said its policy was to delete accounts it found to become dishonest but declined to discuss the special cases.

Brown claimed he was unable to speak on the two men’s’s behalf or explain why their LinkedIn transactions had been terminated. Woods was” a great man and a very successful man ,” he continued, and” I remember Dan to be an incredible human being.”

” LOSE Improve.”

Brown revealed to Reuters that he was a producer on the 2009 documentary” Loose Change ,” which implied that the U.S. government was behind the 9-11 attacks.

Colleagues in the project, Korey Rowe and Dylan Avery, claimed that when the movie was released, Brown received a producer payment. Avery claimed to have received a stanza from Brown. Rowe and Avery both claimed that Brown cut his record on early iterations of the movie because he broke his orally agreed-upon promise to pay thousands of dollars in recording workshop expenses.

Brown claimed that the funding he provided was” reasonable ,” and that his breakup with the two” was due to a personality difference.”

On Tuesday, Virgin Orbit declared failure. A failed January expedition that launched a load of spacecraft into the ocean caused it to never recover.

It was a judgmental trip for the business that American businessman Branson disbanded from his space tourism company Virgin Galactic in 2017 in an effort to compete with SpaceX, run by Elon Musk.

Virgin Group had given the business secured loans, but as the company’s’s cash flow decreased, no new equity was created.

( Reporting by Kevin Krolicki in Singapore and Joey Roulette in Washington, additional reporting by Detroit’s’s Ben Klayman, and editing by Pravin Char. )

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