Virgin Orbit, the sister company of Virgin Galactic (SPCE), will reportedly be the latest space company to be published by a merger with a ‘blankcheck company’.
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Richard Branson’s satellite launch company has hired Credit Suisse Group AG and LionTree LLC to find a special procurement company (SPAC) to advertise it, sources told the Wall Street Journal.
The sources also said Branson is looking for a valuation of 2.5 to 3 billion dollars for Virgin Orbit. He told CNBC in January that Virgin Orbit was considering a public listing via an SPAC.
A public listing follows a successful test in January, when a Virgin Orbit rocket launched ten satellites into space after a major test flight stumbled in May. It was the first time that a horizontal launch system had reached space.
Instead of a vertical launch from Earth, Virgin Orbit uses Cosmic Girl, a modified Boeing (BA) 747, to take the LauncherOne rocket to an altitude of 35,000 feet, where it is released and set on fire to continue into space.
Virgin Galactic shares climbed 2.9% to close at 34.55 on the stock market today. Boeing, which is an investor in Virgin Galactic, rose 6.8% on Friday.
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Virgin Orbit and Virgin Galactic split in 2017, allowing Virgin Orbit to focus on low-cost small satellite launch services for the U.S. military and other customers.
Then, in October 2019, Virgin Galactic became the first listed commercial space tourism industry, following a reverse merger with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings.
This was followed by a spate of blank-check activities in the space industry. Earlier this month, Vector acquisition (VACQ) has announced that it will disclose Rocket Lab in a deal that values the space company at $ 4.1 billion.
Spire Global, a small satellite provider, also announced plans to become public this month through a merger NavSight (NSH).
Astra Space goes via Holicit (HOL), and Momentus is via Stable road access (SRAC).
SPACs provide a way for private companies to publish without a scholarship. Instead of selling shares, the private company merges with a company that is already public. SPACs have recently become popular after being avoided by the financial community for years.
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