en.Wedoany.com Reported - German space company OHB will raise approximately €500 million through a stock offering to expand facilities and pursue potential acquisition opportunities. The company announced on June 22 that it plans to sell about 1.7 million shares at €300 per share, with net proceeds of €490.2 million (approximately $557.6 million) after fees.
Although OHB has been listed for about 25 years, nearly all of its shares were previously held by the Fuchs family and private equity firm KKR, the latter having purchased most of the company's outstanding shares in a 2023 transaction. OHB CEO Marco Fuchs stated at the time that the company was "structurally undervalued" in the public market, and the deal effectively privatized the company. This stock offering reverses that direction. Before the transaction, only about 5% of OHB's shares were traded on the public market; after the offering, this proportion is expected to increase to nearly 20%. The Fuchs family will retain a 60% controlling stake in the company, with KKR holding the remaining 20%.
In a statement regarding the stock offering, Fuchs expressed delight in once again allowing a broader group of investors to invest in OHB, who share their confidence in the future of the European space industry. Over the past three years, increased spending by European governments in civil and defense space sectors has created new opportunities for OHB. The company stated that it is at the beginning of a "super cycle" of increased spending by governments, the European Commission, and the European Space Agency. During a company capital markets update event on May 18, Fuchs said the company positions itself as a European space champion and is the largest pure-play space company in Europe.
Fuchs stated that the capital increase opens the way to achieving strategic goals, aiming to accelerate industrialization, invest in launch vehicles, and explore attractive merger and acquisition opportunities. The company disclosed some plans during the May event. CFO Tim Teckenburg said the market is at a turning point, and the company wants to grow and accelerate this process. Investment priorities include building and expanding production facilities, as well as investing in emerging capabilities such as lunar exploration and the VORTEX spaceplane project in collaboration with Dassault. Teckenburg expressed interest in "selective M&A" opportunities in Europe but did not provide details. A fourth area is providing financial support to Rocket Factory Augsburg (RFA), a launch startup 65% owned by OHB. Slides showed total estimated investments in these four areas ranging between €500 million and €600 million, without specifying allocations for each area.
The capital markets update also included progress on RFA and its RFA ONE small launch vehicle. The company is nearing its first orbital launch attempt of the rocket from the SaxaVord spaceport in the Shetland Islands. RFA COO Stefan Brieschenk said the rocket is at SaxaVord, undergoing final preparations before its maiden flight. He did not give a specific launch date, only stating it would be sometime this year. Fuchs predicted during a May 7 earnings call that the launch would occur "later this summer."
The rocket is the "Block 1" version, designed as expendable, capable of carrying half a ton of payload to low Earth orbit. The company plans to upgrade to the Block 2 version, increasing payload capacity to 1.5 tons and enabling recovery and reuse of the first stage. Block 2 will use an upgraded version of the Helix engine, with double the thrust but only a slight increase in mass. Brieschenk called this a significant stepping stone toward first-stage reuse. RFA plans one RFA ONE Block 1 launch this year, two launches of that rocket variant by 2027, and suggests beginning Block 2 flights in 2028. He said developing a reusable first stage is extremely difficult, requiring several recovery attempts.
RFA plans to scale up production of the Block 2 rocket after 2028, targeting 25 launches per year by an unspecified "mid-term" date after 2029. This frequency would meet demand from the German military due to increased space spending and satellite constellation plans. The company also has growth plans beyond RFA ONE Block 2. Brieschenk presented an RFA TWO rocket design, resembling SpaceX's Starship, with a reusable first and second stage. The rocket could deliver 15 tons of payload to orbit with both stages reusable, increasing to 35 tons if both are expendable, powered by an upgraded Helix X engine with 100 tons of thrust—ten times that of the current Helix 1. Brieschenk said Europe will need a large heavy-lift launch vehicle in the future, and OHB has all the stepping stones to achieve this. He did not reveal a development timeline for RFA TWO, with the relevant slide labeled "beyond mid-term."
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