Boring Is Beautiful
To me, the most fascinating plays are not the flashy rockets. They are the celestial plumbing.
Look at Iridium Communications. They operate a satellite network that has served the maritime and aviation industries for decades. It is not a speculative punt on a science fiction future. It is a dull, ossified, beautiful infrastructure business with actual recurring revenue. The trade-off? You sacrifice explosive growth potential for a bit of stability.
Then we have ViaSat. They want to blanket the globe in broadband. Last year, they swallowed up Inmarsat to expand their empire.
But that empire came with a hefty mortgage.
They loaded up their balance sheet with debt. In a world of unpredictable interest rates, a heavily indebted company faces immense execution risk. The upside of satellite broadband might be vast, but the complexity is very real.