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Spire to buy ExactEarth

Barely few weeks after successfully closing its SPAC, cash loaded Spire announced the purchase of rival compant ExactEarth. The transaction will close end of 2021/early 2022 for a total amount of around $160M ($100M cash, the remainder in stock).

Exact Earth is a pioneer in SAT-AIS and operates around 58 SAT-AIS payloads onboard the Iridium Next constellation, providing global ship tracking services. The company failed an IPO in 2015 and while listed on the Toronto stock exchange, the Share traded between $0,25 and $1,35 for the last years. WIth revenues of around $18M, ExactEarth is not excatly a success story and the purchase by Spire can be considered a great exit. On the Spire side, this has the benefit of giving them access to much more qualitative AIS data with a stable and performing network, although at a cost… It reduces significantly the number of competitors in the field, as only Orbcomm remains as a strong, although much smaller, competitor…

On another note, this confirms the opinions pushed at the latest Satellite 2021 conference, announcing a possible consolidation in the market. The number of Space SPACs completed or announced provide anough cash to better organize the sector, which has it goods and bads… It is probably only the start.

Full article here.

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