City Diary: Houston, we have a problem: Virgin Galactic reveals 'budget pressures'

Yet another set-back for Virgin Galactic, the much-delayed commercial space shuttle from Sir Richard Branson.

After the Virgin entrepreneur was recently forced to insist that his cosmic tour operator is “anything but a black hole”, Diary decided to boldly go into the newly published accounts for Virgin Galactic Limited, the London-based subsidiary that provides global sales and marketing services for the US mothership, Virgin Galactic LLC.

While not quite a black hole, the 2013 accounts do reveal some “budget pressures”. According to directors, a 10pc cut on the previous year’s marketing budgets “has forced us to look for more inventive ways of achieving the market presence we desire”.

Sadly, the accounts don’t elaborate on Virgin Galactic’s more inventive methods of persuading customers to sign up for the $250,000 (£156,000) ride.

But Sir Richard, who has previously dressed up as a butterfly, Che Guevara, and a Catholic priest to generate column inches, no doubt has a far-out PR stunt up his spacesuit sleeve.

As the astro-pioneer (pictured below) said last month as he denied claims by his combative biographer, Tom Bower, that Virgin Galactic will not achieve lift-off for ten years: “Please watch this space”.

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Does Tulchan, the financial PR company behind yesterday’s “Intention to Float” from British Car Auctions (BCA), know something the market doesn’t?

A peek at the “document properties” of Tulchan’s carefully drafted prospectus reveals the comms agency gave the second-hand car-dealer’s IPO project the internal code-name “Ostrich”.

Surely BCA’s advisers can’t be suggesting that – like one of the word’s largest flightless birds – this stock market debut might not exactly soar?

If so, the six investment banks feathering their nests from BCA’s market debut – JP Morgan, UBS, HSBC, Jefferies, Numis and Rothschild – could be forgiven for keeping their heads in the sand.

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Simon Cawkwell, the prolific shortseller who made around £200,000 profiting from the demise of insurance claims processor Quindell, is sitting on sizeable losses for once.

The bear trader backed four horses in the weekend’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe race in Paris with generous sums but, unfortunately, not one was capable of a bull run.

“I’d rather not tot it up,” said Cawkwell, when Diary called to enquire how much the gamble set him back. “But I think it’s around £20,000.”

Naturally, the trader who goes by the alias of “Evil Knievil” has a cunning plan. He tells Diary he plans to toddle back into profit via a £150,000 short position against the “ridiculously overpriced” infant retailer Mothercare.

“The current valuation is just not possible,” Cawkwell claims. Baby steps.

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What is going on at Concha, the Aim shell company named after the Spanish for, er, shell? Since mid-January, the media and sport investment outfit has enjoyed a meteoric rise from 0.16p to 3.65p, after peaking at 4.55p on September 22.

Concha’s chief executive Chris Akers recently told the stock market that directors “know of no reason for the recent rise in the share price”. However, Diary hears rumours that a football deal similar to the Indian Premier League cricket model could be kicking about.

We await Concha’s announcement on its maiden investment, to be made “as and when appropriate”, with interest.

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It's girl power in high finance as Worth magazine’s latest annual rankings of the 100 most influential people in finance hands two of the top five spots to women.

Janet Yellen has climbed 21 places to number two after being appointed as chair of the US Federal Reserve, followed by doughty German chancellor Angela Merkel (below) at number five.

This leaves the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, trailing in 19th place. Britain has become the “bright spot” among European economies, Worth notes, “though that isn’t saying much”.