Quote from: jongoff on 01/22/2025 03:43 pmhttps://www.wsj.com/finance/defense-and-space-company-voyager-technologies-files-to-go-public-d020a807Looks like Voyager is in the process of going public (via the traditional IPO route, and not via a SPAC).~JonExcellents news (well you are going public too, Altius congrats)...Voyager, and Sierra, are the two IPO, I more expect
https://www.wsj.com/finance/defense-and-space-company-voyager-technologies-files-to-go-public-d020a807Looks like Voyager is in the process of going public (via the traditional IPO route, and not via a SPAC).~Jon
https://spacenews.com/voyager-launches-ipo-with-1-6-billion-valuation-target/It looks like the IPO will happen.
Quote from: Danderman on 06/04/2025 11:49 pmhttps://spacenews.com/voyager-launches-ipo-with-1-6-billion-valuation-target/It looks like the IPO will happen.If history is anything to go by. These will sell at $26 day one then be worth 1/2 or 1/4 that in few months.
Well, my purchase of RKLB at $3 is doing okay: $71 today.
Generic bus manufacturers get two types of contracts:1. The pathfinder (if it works, the customer in-sources; if it doesn’t, the customer abandons ship)2. The subcontract on a program that was intentionally underbid that they will become the fall guy for
We old-timers can remember the dot Com bubble, which impacted space companies. The best example of the irrational exuberance of the bubble was Teledesic. And a bunch of rocket companies that never launched.I believe we are in the end stages of another bubble, with orbital data centers the most obvious system.
I stay from any stocks that are highly valued.
Redwire and Voyager are the main rollups I have familiarity with. Having sold my startup to the latter, and having a lot of friends who sold companies to the former. I guess it's technically possible that in some narrow sense of the term RDWR and VOYG have "created value".But when you look at so many of the companies they bought, all the founders and almost all of the talent has left, most of the innovation is gone. It's not like they're wildly profitable either. I'm kind of glad I was able to sell my Voyager shares back on Aug 1st...I wish Dylan and Matt well, but Voyager has always been basically the kind of financial EBITDA multiple arbitrage play the person you were quoting was talking about. Almost no real investment in the portcos, no real process improvements, just financial engineering.(Now that isn't to say that there aren't talented people from the portcos and even a few at the HQ level who are trying to make a difference. Which is a big part of why I still wish them well, even if to-date they've been a massive disappointment.)
Kravis is describing the death of the most profitable trade in private equity history.The rollup math used to be simple. Buy 10 plumbing companies at 4-5x EBITDA, combine them into a platform, exit at 12-15x. Pure multiple arbitrage. No operational improvement required. GF Data shows deals under $10M still traded at 4.5x in 2024 while $100-500M platforms commanded 9x. That spread was the entire business model.What killed it wasn’t founder sophistication. It was data. PitchBook, CapIQ, and industry reports democratized the exact multiples PE firms were paying and exiting at. Founders who used to negotiate blind against a fund with 200 deals of pattern recognition now pull the same comps in 30 seconds.Bain found that rollups depending on multiple arbitrage alone returned 1.4x MOIC. Those with actual operational improvement returned 2.2x. The lazy version of the strategy stopped working years ago for institutional players. Now it’s stopped working for everyone.The VCs attempting “AI rollups” are making the same bet. General Catalyst’s Creation Fund has $1.5-2.5B earmarked to roll up service businesses and inject AI. The thesis is that embedding automation transforms a 5x EBITDA services company into a 20x software company.Fortune ran the numbers on this in July. Concentrix, the poster child for BPO automation, deployed AI across 1,000 customers in 2024. Their multiple stayed in low single digits. EBITDA margin still ~10%. The market refused to reprice them as software.Kravis knows this. KKR pioneered the rollup playbook in the 80s. When he says the arbitrage is closing, he’s telling you the entry point that made PE returns possible for 40 years is being competed away by information transparency.The firms that survive will have to do what PE always claimed to do but rarely did: actually improve the businesses they buy.
Pretty damning criticism of Voyager and Redwire: https://x.com/rocketrepreneur/status/2004688130147057750QuoteRedwire and Voyager are the main rollups I have familiarity with. Having sold my startup to the latter, and having a lot of friends who sold companies to the former. I guess it's technically possible that in some narrow sense of the term RDWR and VOYG have "created value".But when you look at so many of the companies they bought, all the founders and almost all of the talent has left, most of the innovation is gone. It's not like they're wildly profitable either. I'm kind of glad I was able to sell my Voyager shares back on Aug 1st...I wish Dylan and Matt well, but Voyager has always been basically the kind of financial EBITDA multiple arbitrage play the person you were quoting was talking about. Almost no real investment in the portcos, no real process improvements, just financial engineering.(Now that isn't to say that there aren't talented people from the portcos and even a few at the HQ level who are trying to make a difference. Which is a big part of why I still wish them well, even if to-date they've been a massive disappointment.)The "the kind of financial EBITDA multiple arbitrage play the person you were quoting was talking about" is this: https://x.com/aakashg0/status/2004485085316383107, Kravis is Henry Kravis, co-founder of the private equity and investment firm Kohlberg Kravis RobertsQuoteKravis is describing the death of the most profitable trade in private equity history.The rollup math used to be simple. Buy 10 plumbing companies at 4-5x EBITDA, combine them into a platform, exit at 12-15x. Pure multiple arbitrage. No operational improvement required. GF Data shows deals under $10M still traded at 4.5x in 2024 while $100-500M platforms commanded 9x. That spread was the entire business model.What killed it wasn’t founder sophistication. It was data. PitchBook, CapIQ, and industry reports democratized the exact multiples PE firms were paying and exiting at. Founders who used to negotiate blind against a fund with 200 deals of pattern recognition now pull the same comps in 30 seconds.Bain found that rollups depending on multiple arbitrage alone returned 1.4x MOIC. Those with actual operational improvement returned 2.2x. The lazy version of the strategy stopped working years ago for institutional players. Now it’s stopped working for everyone.The VCs attempting “AI rollups” are making the same bet. General Catalyst’s Creation Fund has $1.5-2.5B earmarked to roll up service businesses and inject AI. The thesis is that embedding automation transforms a 5x EBITDA services company into a 20x software company.Fortune ran the numbers on this in July. Concentrix, the poster child for BPO automation, deployed AI across 1,000 customers in 2024. Their multiple stayed in low single digits. EBITDA margin still ~10%. The market refused to reprice them as software.Kravis knows this. KKR pioneered the rollup playbook in the 80s. When he says the arbitrage is closing, he’s telling you the entry point that made PE returns possible for 40 years is being competed away by information transparency.The firms that survive will have to do what PE always claimed to do but rarely did: actually improve the businesses they buy.
Some of the space companies that could do IPO this year:Sierra Space, Iceye, Axiom, SpaceX, Vantor (Maxar software), York Space...Will see.
