AAC Clyde Space to Acquire US SpaceQuest
Uppsala, Sweden, October 15, 2020--AAC Clyde Space has reached an agreement to acquire 100 percent of the shares in SpaceQuest, Ltd in an all shares deal in a payment of 24,000,000 new AAC shares to the current owners of Space Quest. The acquisition is subject to approval by the AAC Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) and The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
SpaceQuest is a successful small satellite company operating in the world's largest and most dynamic space market. It operates a highly profitable Space as a Service (SaaS) business including mission operations of in-orbit satellites, allowing AAC Clyde Space to rapidly grow the SaaS business line. Through AAC's global reach, SpaceQuest's offering will be marketed to the global audience in need of mission critical data from space.
Commenting on the announcement AAC Clyde Space CEO Luis Gomes stated "It is great to have SpaceQuest join the AAC family. This acquisition represents the next step in our strategy to grow our operations in the US, and to expand our Space as a Service business. SpaceQuest's fleet of satellites and ground station network represent a great addition of capability to our SaaS offering and further strengthens our plans to change the economics of delivering data services from space."
Chairman Rolf Hallencreutz commented on the deal, "We are transforming AAC into a true leader in the small satellite field. With SpaceQuest we gain a commercially attractive Space as a Service business and a strong foothold in the U.S, the largest and most dynamic space market. Last week's announcement of the acquisition of Hyperion shows our commitment to providing state of the art technology. By bringing these two companies into the group we become a truly global supplier of space systems and a very attractive partner for companies who are looking to exploit opportunities based on data from space."
Founder and CEO of SpaceQuest Dino Lorenzini says "With the access of AAC world class designs SpaceQuest will be able to successfully grow in the very dynamic US space market. There is a growing market demand for quality suppliers of satellite technology. The combination of SpaceQuest's brand name, products and satellite infrastructure, along with the platform designs from AAC opens up new opportunities for us. The combination of SpaceQuest, Hyperion and AAC Clyde Space creates a powerful and synergistic capability."
SpaceQuest is a pioneer in small satellite technology that has built and launched 20 spacecrafts and supplies satellite components for many commercial aerospace companies and institutions, such as NASA, the Department of Defense, and Universities. It designed its first satellite 20 years ago. Currently Space Quest operates a fleet of satellites that hosts experimental payloads for several clients and collects AIS (Automatic Identification System) messages used in numerous maritime applications in a "Space as a Service" model.
With the acquisition of SpaceQuest, AAC extends its operations to the US with a new location in Virginia, growing its workforce to 107 staff at three different locations (Uppsala, Glasgow and Fairfax). The combined group's pro-forma revenue is approximately 51 MSEK in Q1-Q2 2020.
With the acquisitions of SpaceQuest and of Hyperion, the AAC proforma group revenue for 2020 is estimated at 135 MSEK (approximately US$ 15 million), a 35% increase over the previous published estimate. Adding two profitable companies to the AAC Group facilitates AAC's goal to be EBITDA and operational cash flow positive in the near future according to the company.