Virgin Orbit has filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety within the US after failing to safe the funding wanted to get well from a January rocket failure.
Virgin Orbit, which is 75% owned by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, lodged the submitting within the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware looking for a sale of its belongings.
It listed belongings of about $243m (£195m) and its whole debt at $153.5m (£123m) as of 30 September.
Virgin Orbit chief govt Dan Hart mentioned: “The team at Virgin Orbit has developed and brought into operation a new and innovative method of launching satellites into orbit, introducing new technology and managing great challenges and great risks along the way as we proved the system and performed several successful space flights, including successfully launching 33 satellites into their precise orbit.
“While we now have taken nice efforts to handle our monetary place and safe further financing, we in the end should do what’s finest for the enterprise.
“We believe that the cutting-edge launch technology that this team has created will have wide appeal to buyers as we continue in the process to sell the company.
“At this stage, we imagine that the Chapter 11 course of represents the very best path ahead to establish and finalise an environment friendly and value-maximising sale.”
Chapter 11 typically permits for the reorganisation of a struggling firm, aimed toward conserving the enterprise alive and paying collectors over time.
A distinct chapter – Chapter 7 – is when the corporate’s belongings are bought off to pay lenders.
Just final week, California-based Virgin Orbit mentioned it was shedding 85% of its 750 workers and ceasing operations for the foreseeable future.
That choice got here after the corporate aborted the UK’s first satellite tv for pc launch from Cornwall in January, blaming an “anomaly”.
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The LauncherOne rocket failed to succeed in orbit and despatched its payload of US and UK intelligence satellites plunging into the ocean.
Between November and March, Sir Richard’s Branson Virgin Group offered $50m (£40m) to the satellite tv for pc launch firm by way of debt secured towards its tools and different belongings, in response to securities filings.
But the UK launch failure despatched the corporate scrambling to search out new funding and it paused operations and furloughed most of its workers in mid-March.
Last week’s affirmation that 85% of workers could be laid off got here because of the corporate’s “inability to secure meaningful funding”, Virgin Orbit mentioned.
Virgin Orbit had a market worth of $65m (£52.4m) primarily based on Monday’s closing value, down from greater than $3bn (£2.4bn) two years in the past.
Source: information.sky.com”