Bankrupt Virgin Orbit Enters Stalking Horse Agreement To Sell Cosmic Girl, Other Assets For $17M

Satellite company Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc VORBQ, which was founded by British entrepreneur Richard Branson, said on Tuesday that it entered into a stalking horse agreement for the sale of its assets.

What Happened: Virgin Orbit entered into a stalking horse agreement with American aerospace company Stratolaunch LLC on Tuesday. Stratolaunch made a $17 million in cash bid for Virgin Orbit’s assets, including its Boeing 747 aircraft known as Cosmic Girl and other assets required to operate the aircraft.

The bid will serve as a baseline bid on the assets of the bankrupt company, which other bidders can’t underbid. It will not prevent other bidders from bidding for the company’s assets, including those that have been bid for by Stratolaunch, the company said. The bid deadline is 12:00 p.m. ET, May 19.

Why It Matters: Virgin Orbit filed for bankruptcy last month and listed assets and liabilities between $100 million and $500 million. It halted all its operations starting March 16 and furloughed nearly all of its 750 employees to look for potential funding after its financial constraints were aggravated by to its failure to deploy nine small satellites into lower Earth orbit early this year.

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