2022 was the end of an era for space investors.
Five years prior, Canadian space stock MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA) had acquired DigitalGlobe, America's leading provider of Earth-imaging photographs from satellites in orbit. (DigitalGlobe had itself absorbed the other leading satellite-imaging company, GeoEye, years earlier.) Covetous of these assets, in 2017 MDA stepped in and bought DigitalGlobe, then changed its own name to Maxar Technologies.
Up to that point, each of these companies had been publicly traded, giving space investors a more or less "pure play" way to invest in space technology. But in 2022, Maxar itself was withdrawn from the public markets when private equity firm Advent International stepped in and announced it was taking Maxar private in a $6.4 billion transaction. Ever since, it's been impossible to invest in the company owning arguably the best fleet of space satellites around for taking highly detailed photographs from space.
But the stage may be getting set for that to change.
Image source: Getty Images.
Maxar rebrands
When Advent bought Maxar, it split its new prize into two parts. Maxar Intelligence became the new name of the company that ran the legacy Earth-imaging operations. Maxar Space Systems covered the satellite-building operations of MDA which, as you'll recall from above, was the company that bought DigitalGlobe.
On Wednesday, though, it was noted that Advent has decided to further rename both of these companies. Aiming to reduce confusion about which Maxar was which, Advent says that henceforth, Maxar Intelligence will go by the corporate name Vantor. Maxar Space Systems will be called Lanteris. (Is it just me, or do both these names sound like superheroes?)
Introducing Vantor
Going forward, Vantor will pivot a bit from primarily selling digital photos to adding more value to the photos it takes from orbit. As SpaceNews comments, "while owning and operating satellites remains foundational, the real growth lies in harnessing vast amounts of Earth observation data and applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to exploit the raw data" -- then sell the results to customers.
To this end, Vantor has created a new AI-powered software platform it calls Tensorglobe that will depict Vantor's data in the form of a "digital twin" of Earth. Using Tensorglobe will help drones navigate using terrain maps rather than GPS, says Vantor. So while the company will continue to market its services both to government and commercial customers in general, it's logical to think Vantor will view drone companies as a key customer driving future growth.
Introducing Lanteris
As for the other half of what used to be Maxar, Lanteris will continue its current business model of building Low Earth Orbit (LEO) commercial and military satellites (this business splits about 50-50), as well as robotic spacecraft for in-orbit missions.
Historically, Maxar preferred building larger satellites for Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO), and CEO Chris Johnson hopes this is something he hopes Lanteris can get back to, especially with larger rockets from SpaceX and Blue Origin coming on line, capable of launching larger payloads to orbit.
"I'm still a strong believer that geostationary orbit is an ideal place to do a lot of things," Johnson told SpaceNews last week, insisting there's still demand for big satellites that can perform communications and sensing missions, as well as for large pieces of space infrastructure that may be needed to build new space stations or even long-term outposts on the moon.
IPO dreams
In its story on the rebranding, SpaceNews says Advent will be keeping both Vantor and Lanteris as "portfolio companies" for the time being. But it's not clear what advantage there is to renaming the companies if they're going to forever reside under a corporate parent that is itself private.
To the contrary, the fact that Advent has decided to rename the companies now, two years after buying them -- two years in which it's presumably been restructuring the businesses to improve their operations and make them more efficient and profitable -- suggests to me that Advent may already be looking down the road to a day when it's time to sell Vantor, Lanteris, or both, back into the public markets.
At least now, if and when that IPO (or IPOs) happens, you'll recognize the names of the company (or companies) that are IPO'ing.
