The company Ilona Mask Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) plans to separate the Starlink satellite Internet service into an independent company and put it on an IPO, Bloomberg reports.
The Starlink project envisages bringing about 12,000 satellites into low Earth orbit by the mid-2020s to create a global network that will provide Earth’s inhabitants with broadband Internet access anywhere in the world. The total investment for the project is estimated at $10 billion.
SpaceX has already launched more than 240 satellites to create the Starlink network and expects that the service will begin to provide customers with Internet access services this summer. This was stated by SpaceX President Gwynn Shotwell during a private event for investors in Miami, organized by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“At the moment, we are a private company, however, Starlink is the type of business that we can move forward and bring to the stock exchange,” she said.
Starlink’s IPO is likely to be supported by both SpaceX employees and company investors. Musk did not seek to bring the company to the open market, since this requires, in particular, a detailed disclosure of its financial indicators. In this regard, many employees owning shares in the company had the opportunity to sell them only as part of a limited number of private transactions. The Starlink IPO will allow long-standing investors to take profits on their investments, experts say.
