| ▲ | moralestapia 2 hours ago |
| Crazy. I didn't know you could acquire things worth 20x more than you. |
|
| ▲ | pnw 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| RocketLab market cap is 57b. Iridium market cap was 5.5b and this transaction values it at 8b. |
| |
| ▲ | xgbi 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | How is Rocketlab valued 57B? They made $500M of revenue in 2025. This is 100x their entire balance sheet. | | |
| ▲ | pavon an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah, that seems grossly unrealistic. They are growing. Neutron is almost complete, and I'd expect significant growth in their launch revenue from that, and their space services are also doing well. So I could easily see their revenue increasing 5x over the next 5 years, maybe 10x. But that market cap can only be justified by the space market as a whole growing 100x, and RL maintaining a significant portion of it with strong competition from SpaceX, Blue Origin, and others. | | |
| ▲ | ElProlactin 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | > Neutron is almost complete... I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars from my early investments in RKLB but this isn't true if by "complete" you mean they have a proven launch vehicle. The company is now targeting late 2026 for Neutron's inaugural flight. Neutron was announced in 2021. There were hopes for a 2024 first flight. Then it was mid-to-late 2025. Now it's Q4 2026 after a failure related to the stage 1 tank earlier this year. If anyone can pull off using carbon composite for a launch vehicle of this size, it's RKLB. But nobody has done it before and I think the retail investor base is taking for granted something that is not at all guaranteed. There's much more risk than a lot of people think. In some ways, RKLB is more like pre-clinical biotech stocks, which usually produce binary outcomes (a drug succeeds or it fails, and the company's fate is based on that). If Neutron works, RKLB gets to execute its grand vision. If it fails, it doesn't. The vision (and valuation) doesn't work without Neutron. | |
| ▲ | boredatoms 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | A rocket being nearly complete just means they haven’t started the multi year testing delays when the first couple of launches inevitably fail |
| |
| ▲ | wateralien 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This is a good question for SpaceX too. | |
| ▲ | saberience 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why was Uber valued in billions for years while making zero profit? Why was Amazon valued at billions while making zero profit? The stock market prices companies by many factors, revenue and profit are factors but so is growth. Utilities companies make lots of profits but they are valued badly because they don’t grow at all! Markets are forward looking and space is seen as a huge growth driver for the future, also RocketLab has been growing their top line revenue massively over the last few years. | | |
| ▲ | wongarsu an hour ago | parent [-] | | Uber and Amazon made zero profit, but a lot of revenue. That's very different from losing money on fairly little revenue But RocketLab did have five years of strong revenue growth. And they have a lower PS ratio than SpaceX. So at least compared to industry-rivals the valuation is justified |
| |
| ▲ | moralestapia an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Exactly my point. Iridium's revenue is larger, and I wouldn't think they'd be losing money. But apparently you can buy things with promises (if you're in the right club, of course). |
| |
| ▲ | sspiff 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'm guessing they acquired it mostly exchanging stocks. Which I guess is an indication that their stock is overvalued right now if they're willing to overpay by that much. |
|
|
| ▲ | brookst 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Look at GameStop’s quixotic attempt to acquire eBay. Which is actually not impossible. |
| |
|
| ▲ | PierceJoy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Rocket Lab's market cap is 57B and are buying Iridium for 8B. I'm assuming you're implying some other measure of worth, but it's not that crazy based on stock price. |
| |
| ▲ | ericmay 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Also folks acquire things "worth" more than them all the time. That's in part why debt exists. There are a lot of folks out there that are overly cynical and so they'll just write things like the OP from time to time which just don't make much sense or have much to do with how the real world works. What's more interesting is looking at or trying to understand strategically why Rocket Lab is making this move, especially if you are an investor. |
|
|
| ▲ | malfist 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Dell bought EMC for 67b when they were worth 24b |
|
| ▲ | bitwize 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This is one of those times you actually get to use "leverage" as a verb without sounding turbo cringe: a leveraged buyout is an acquisition with borrowed money; the hope is that you will be able to pay back the debt with the money you make off the acquired assets. Doesn't always pan out but sometimes it does. |
|
| ▲ | elzbardico 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| That's this thing called credit. People do this all the time, that's how they buy their first house (or at least used to...). Your net worth is basically zero beyond what you saved for the down payment, but the bank advances you the money to buy the house because it believes your future income streams will allow you to pay the principal plus an interest. |
| |
| ▲ | dylan604 an hour ago | parent [-] | | being able to foreclose on the house/property is a pretty decent protection for the bank that doesn't exist for a business though |
|
