A D-FW resident has been accused by the SEC of submitting a bogus $200 million offer to invest in Virgin Orbit.
After Brown’s investment offer was made public, Virgin Orbit’s stock price rose 33.1% but it quickly fell after the deal collapsed. The company was delisted from the NASDAQ on May 2, 2023.Brown also tried to profit from the deal by attempting to convince Virgin Orbit to agree to a “break-up fee,” a penalty applied to companies during mergers and acquisitions if the seller backs out of the deal. Virgin Orbit didn’t agree to that, but if applied, the company would have had to compensate Brown.
“I have invested over $750mm of my personal capital, largely in this vertical, and largely in stealth mode…. I have the bandwidth to write the $200mm,” Brown wrote to Virgin Orbit on March 19, 2023. However, Brown never sent an official offer for $200 million to anyone at Virgin Orbit, the SEC said.In an effort to lend more credibility to his story, he told Virgin Orbit executives that he had a law degree from Southern Methodist University.