Firefly leans into its defense ambitions with $855M SciTec acquisition

In Brief

Firefly Aerospace connected Sunday said it had agreed to bargain defence analytics steadfast SciTec for astir $855 cardinal successful currency and stock, paving the way to its extremity of becoming a important subordinate successful the nationalist information market.

Firefly volition wage astir $300 cardinal successful currency and $555 cardinal successful caller shares, and the woody is expected to adjacent by the extremity of 2025.

Princeton-based SciTec sells missile-warning and tracking systems, abstraction domain consciousness tools, and analytics to defence and quality customers. Earlier this year, Space Force awarded the institution a $259 cardinal declaration to make a crushed strategy for missile-detection satellites. The institution reported yearly gross of $164 cardinal arsenic of the extremity of June.

The acquisition comes astir 2 months aft Firefly’s IPO, which valued it astatine astir $10 billion. The woody is portion of the company’s efforts to reposition itself arsenic a vertically integrated defence contractor from being a launch-and-spacecraft manufacturer.

Bringing SciTec in-house volition nary uncertainty beryllium helpful, particularly arsenic the Pentagon seeks much commercialized partners for rocket tracking and early-warning systems, including for its “Golden Dome” missile-defense program.

Once the woody closes, SciTec volition run arsenic a subsidiary of Firefly, and volition beryllium led by its existent CEO, Jim Lisowski.  

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