🚀 Viasat vs. Activist Fund

View this email in your browser

The Space Scoop

Week Ended 08.01.2025

Happy Friday! Firefly gave us a better glimpse at their proposed IPO offering, Viasat received a letter from an activist investor, and the earnings calendar is getting beefy. Lets dive in.

Market Max-Q

Top Stories

1) Carronade Capital Management urged Viasat ($VSAT) to spin off its defense business.

• The activist investor with a 2.6% equity stake and $30M of debt wrote to the Company to spin-off or IPO its Defense and Advanced Technologies (DAT) business, noting it could support a valuation of over $50/share.

• "We believe DAT's business lines span critical and rapidly growing areas. This is further enhanced by market share gains, driving growth that continues to exceed overall total addressable market growth," Carronade said in the letter.

• Viasat responded the next day, stating: "Viasat consistently engages in dialogue with its shareholders and welcomes constructive input focused on maximizing shareholder value. . . The Board and management team will carefully evaluate Carronade’s ideas."

• Shares finished the week up +13%.

2) Second quarter earnings continued with Boeing and Echostar along with Airbus and SES's first half reporting. Highlights include:

• Boeing Defense, Space & Security

  • Revenue: $6.6B, +10% YoY

  • Oper Earnings: $110M vs. $(913)M YoY

  • Oper Margin: 1.7% vs. (15.2)% YoY

  • Backlog: $74B

  • Shares: -4%

• Airbus Defence and Space H1

  • Revenue: €5.8B, +17% YoY

  • Adj. EBIT:  €265M vs. €(807)M

  • Order Intake: 5,084, -16% YoY

  • Shares: -5%

• SES H1

  • Revenue: €978M, flat YoY

  • Adj. EBITDA: €521M, -1% YoY

  • Adj. FCF: €193M, +32% YoY

  • Backlog: €4.2B

  • Shares: +1%

• Echostar

  • Cash & Equivalents: $4.5B

  • Revenue: $3.7B, -6% YoY

  • Net Loss: $(306.1)M vs. $(205.6)M YoY

  • OIBDA: $279.6M, -37% YoY

  • Subscribers: 819k

  • Shares: -17%

In Other News

Firefly Updates IPO S-1 

(SEC)

$FLY will offer 16.2M shares at a set range of $35-$39 per its latest S-1 filing, which equates to ~$632M raised at an $5.5B valuation. Timing of the IPO is still to be determined.

AST SpaceMobile Closes $575M Offering 

(BW)

The private offering included the exercise in full of the option to initial purchasers to purchase up to $75M aggregate principal amount. This moves strengthens AST's balance sheet with over $1.5B in pro-forma cash as of June 30th and a seven-year maturity structure.

Sidus Closes $7.5M Offering 

(Co)

The best-efforts public offering of 7.143M shares of common stock was sold at a public offering price of $1.05 per share. All of the shares of common stock were offered by the Company. Net proceeds will be used for sales and marketing, operational costs, product development, manufacturing expansion and working capital.

Spaceflux Raises £5.4M Seed Round 

(SE)

The London-based space situational awareness and telescope network startup will use the funding to scale of its global network and expand commercial delivery. The funding round was co-led by the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, Foresight Group, and Blackfinch Ventures.

Chart of the Week

July Performance: July has come to an end and Virgin Galactic ($SPCE) outperformed its peers at +39%, followed by Rocket Lab ($RKLB) +28% and AST SpaceMobile ($ASTS) +14%. Sidus was the largest underperformer at -33%. Hopefully next month we'll have a new addition to the list -- Firefly Aerospace ($FLY).

Links

• NASA Says 20% of Workforce To Depart Space Agency• Spire ($SPIR) Awarded ESA Contract Under the TPM Programme for Weather Data• Team Led by MDA ($MDA) Selected for Canada’s Lunar Utility Vehicle Study• BlackSky ($BKSY) Wins Next Phase of US Navy Optical Inter-Satellite Link Research Contract To Advance Gen-3 Communications• Planet ($PL) Ships Two More Pelican Sats & Announces Fully Ramped Production Line• Intuitive Machines ($LUNR) Secures $9.8M Phase II Government Contract To Advance OTV Through CDR• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) Schedules Fifth Electron Mission for iQPS• Echostar ($SATS) Selects MDA ($MDA) As Prime Contractor for Non-Terrestrial Network LEO D2D Constellation

Opinion

• Space IPOs May Be Outliers, Not a Trend• Rocket Lab ($RKLB) Valuation Is Still Attractive• Intuitive Machines ($LUNR): Why I’m Long, Again

Earnings Calendar

• $VSAT: Aug 5 - After Market Close• $GILT: Aug 6 - Before Market Open• $TSAT: Aug 6 - Before Market Open• $RDW: Aug 6 - After Market Close• $SPCE: Aug 6 - After Market Close• $VOYG: Aug 6 - After Market Close• $BKSY: Aug 7 - Before Market Open• $GSAT: Aug 7 - Before Market Open• $LUNR: Aug 7 - Before Market Open• $MDA: Aug 7 - Before Market Open• $KRMN: Aug 7 - After Market Close• $RKLB: Aug 7 - After Market Close• $ASTS: Aug 11 - After Market Close• $SPIR: Aug 13 - After Market Close

*Company confirmed dates only.