In their end of June/early July shareholder letter, Cove Street Capital said "The defense business is arguably worth 2x the current market cap." That would put his value of the defense business at ~$25 per share or $3.2 billion. Sell it and take the cash. Good for the defense employees to move to a larger company, good for the stock price, and good for rest of employees.
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Maybe look at the long term performance of CSCAX (Cove Street Capital Small Cap Value Fund) before listening to their evaluations.
Will they have the dolares to launch another satellite?
Will they have the cojones to launch another satellite?
GFB leadership are suuuuch turds.
(Replying to @lnh+1vud6zXi)
They bought Rignet at a valuation of $222 million. Is it worth much more than that now? Guessing it is. If not, that’s not moving the needle much and better off keeping it.
hey @1yts
yeah good point but J@mmy & Maverick been trying to sell Rignet for mebbe 2 years now. That's a fact, thats why they lookin to close down Houston Ops, but there aint no buyers out there. Except rumors of sellin to Saudis. And we need cash now.
@1yts+1vud6zXi I don't think they will try to part ways with Rignet. They keep talking about pivoting to IoT and Rignet gives them access to precisely that for industrial applications.
Things will happen faster than you think. People thought it wouldn't be until next year before we hit single digits.
@2asx+1vud6zXi Agreed. I hope it all gets sorted in the next 3-6 months.
MD will never have to worry about money again, but I bet he's losing some sleep over this. Not good for his ego.
@2asx+1vud6zXi Makes perfect sense. However as a shareholder, boy, I'd sure like it to be articulated that his capital interests and our capital interests are not aligned. Sure brings up questions on how fiduciary responsibilities are looked after as chairman.
I think for MD it was never about the money and maximizing shareholder value. He wanted to design and create technology and taping public markets was the way to go. He still gets a generous salary and is well taken care of. He never had an issue over spending to meet his “innovation” goals. LEO wasn’t interesting to him so he didn’t do it. Full stop.
Is it a good time to invest in viasat now?
@1rfc+1vud6zXi I shake my head too. You would think that profit seeking instinct of 1% ownership would have kicked in, ohhhh I dunno, anytime in the last 5-7 years. But nope. Instead he just keeps chasing down the same loosing rabbit holes trying to make GEO great again. At this point, if we are to cast his ownership as a proxy for fiduciary stewardship then I want new stewards for my capital.
Rignet story is gettin old! Seems they been trying to sell it since before Inmarsat happened. Either they too greedy or nobody wants it (I know that ain’t true). Maybe they got to humble and kiss Saudi rings
Same goes with Gary Chase. He wants that stock to appreciate. So he’ll be sure to have the financial models to back the right move up
The Inmarsat consortium, baupost and a few other shareholders still have a lot of skin in the game and decent board representation. They will force MD’s hand if needed. But, as mentioned in another reply, MD still owns over 1% of the company so he too wants a higher share price. Our boy Guru’s compensation is heavily weighted toward stock so he will want to sway things the “right” way too. If he even truly understands what the right way is.
MD is a big shareholder though, why wouldn't he want to do something that would benefit him.
But don't get your hopes up too high. MD knows gov is the crown jewel that keeps his lights on and while he'd get cash he'd also have nothing left that's worthwhile. Maybe he does sell it. But don't ignore the possibility some of the other misfit toys are on the block like rignet or non-core portions of inmarsat. Just saying they are looking at everything and while selling gov would the best capital allocation outcome for shareholders, that ironically a strong reason why they would not do it given their historical propensity to fu-k shareholders.
I'm sure everybody on the govt side would love to be unburdened by what has been.
@lnh+1vud6zXi I think the Nexus wave is a competitive offering in the Maritime space (already seeing positive uptake). They can add LEO hybrid model to Aviation with Telesat (or another way) they too can continue being a top player in Aviation. Maybe join forces with Kuiper one way or another. Would also give them launch future vehicle access via Blue Origin.
Next step would use some of that cash to pay down debt and interest expense. Get F2 and F3 launched and resume growth. Starlink level growth? No, but that isn’t necessary. Then perhaps sell the rest of the company or merger with another player. With the defense business carved out, that’s a much easier proposition as a pure satellite product and services play.
Yep that really is the only action that optimizes capital allocation and outcomes for shareholders. Yet I shudder thinking what's left of Viasat is GFB (a tu-d run by turds), Aviation (hasn't realized yet it's bleeding out), and Maritime (already half digested by the StarLink monster).