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Rocket Lab agrees to acquire Iridium in $8 billion cash-and-stock deal

Rocket Lab agreed to acquire Iridium Communications in a cash-and-stock deal valuing Iridium at about $8 billion enterprise value.

Rocket Lab and Iridium Communications said they signed a definitive agreement for Rocket Lab to acquire all outstanding Iridium common stock, per a joint press release filed as an exhibit to Rocket Lab's 8-K with the SEC on June 29, 2026. Iridium stockholders will receive $27.00 in cash plus Rocket Lab shares under an exchange ratio collared between $67.50 and $112.50, a structure the companies say has a notional value of $54.00 per Iridium share and implies an $8.0 billion enterprise value. Both boards approved the deal unanimously, Rocket Lab has commitments for a $3.6 billion bridge loan from Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, and the companies expect to close in mid-2027 subject to Iridium stockholder and regulatory approval. On July 6, 2026, Iridium said it completed its acquisition of the remaining 61% of Aireon, the space-based air-traffic-surveillance venture it did not already own, paying about $367 million to providers in Canada, England, Denmark, Ireland, and Italy, per SpaceNews, consolidating Aireon as a wholly owned subsidiary ahead of the Rocket Lab deal's close. The FCC accepted the companies' license-transfer applications for filing on September 16, opening a public-comment period running through November 9, per Stocktwits; Iridium's shareholders are scheduled to vote on the merger at a special meeting on September 24, per Iridium's definitive proxy filing as reported by TradingView. Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck said September 22 that Iridium's L-band spectrum, not its satellites, is the deal's core asset: "Spectrum is physics. You can't just magic up spectrum," he said, estimating Rocket Lab could have deployed a comparable constellation for roughly $350 million instead of the deal's $8 billion price, per Stocktwits.