kittyrocket t1_jdaxxwb wrote on March 23, 2023 at 2:08 AM

I'd be really curious to hear the case Virgin Orbit made to Matthew Brown. I have a hard time envisioning a viable niche for their services. It seems like the small sat launchers are all counting on developing bigger rockets, but Virgin's technology just can't scale up in size because there's only so much a 747 can carry.

pompanoJ t1_jdazvd4 wrote on March 23, 2023 at 2:23 AM

I was thinking the same thing. Hard to see a path to getting your $200 million back.

JPhonical t1_jdb1xas wrote on March 23, 2023 at 2:39 AM

The valuation for the deal is $200 million - a 'controlling interest' only costs half that at most depending on how you define 'controlling' - do they mean a majority of shares or a majority of board seats.

But your main point stands - unless they find a new market (maybe defense?) it's going to be difficult and may require developing the top launched Launcher Two.

pompanoJ t1_jdb5qtv wrote on March 23, 2023 at 3:09 AM

From CNBC

amounting to an injection of $200 million.

This means they are raising $200 million, not that the valuation is $200 million.

JPhonical t1_jdbl39e wrote on March 23, 2023 at 5:42 AM

That's interesting... the market cap is only $200 million so that would involve close to a total buyout that would have them delisted (unless the investor is paying a massive premium over the market - not impossible, but unlikely IMHO).

Surely that would require shareholder approval, but this deal is meant to be done very fast to prevent the company falling apart as all the staff get jobs elsewhere.

I guess we don't yet have enough of the puzzle pieces to figure out what's going on yet - we'll have to wait for a formal announcement.

kittyrocket t1_jdb3ruf wrote on March 23, 2023 at 2:53 AM

Hm, maybe they’re going to let him ride it. That seems very Texan sort of thing to do.

nic_haflinger t1_jdbcnth wrote on March 23, 2023 at 4:11 AM

Virgin Orbit’s manufacturing tech is pretty sophisticated. They could certainly build a bigger rocket and ground launch it. Their propulsion tech is pretty solid as well. Newton3 75k lbf thrust puts it in a different class than anything RocketLab or Relativity have flown.

indochris609 t1_jdhxulr wrote on March 24, 2023 at 2:58 PM

He's a fraud. This won't happen. Did you listen to his interview?