Al Root
The space technology start-up Firefly Aerospace has potential, and some risks. That is the message from Wall Street as analysts begin to weigh in on the stock following its August initial public offering.
Firefly calls itself a space and defense company, providing launch and spacecraft solutions mainly to the U.S. government. Its Blue Ghost mission landed on the north side of the moon on March 2 as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
The company also has contracts with defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, L3Harris Technologies, and Northrop Grumman, which has invested $50 million in it.
Firefly raised almost $900 million, selling shares at $45 apiece in its IPO, completed on Aug. 7. Analysts at brokers that work on such deals typically have to wait a few weeks to publish investment research on a newly public company.
The waiting period for Firefly is over, so investors have a bunch of new opinions to weigh. Jefferies launched coverage with a Buy rating and $60 price target. JPMorgan and Cantor Fitzgerald also launched stock coverage with Buy ratings and respective price targets of $55 and $65, the highest on Wall Street.
Firefly isn't profitable yet. Sales in 2026 are expected to be $433 million, growing to $1.3 billion by 2030. The company is expected to lose about $90 million in 2026 with positive operating profit forecast in 2027, according to FactSet.
Jefferies analyst Shelia Kahyaoglu values the company at 10.5 times the $800 million of sales she expected in 2027, citing the valuations of Rocket Lab and SpaceX, two other companies in the space business.
"Firefly offers four core products that are positioned to capitalize on underserved and growing areas of the launch and spacecraft markets for national security, commercial, and scientific purposes," wrote Kahyaoglu in a Monday report. "The business has had early commercial success, with a backlog exceeding $1 billion. The focus from here is on execution."
Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank launched coverage with Hold ratings. Goldman's target is $54 a share, while Deutsche Bank's is $45, the lowest on the Street.
"Our framework for investing in space, Firefly Aerospace, touches on several key areas, including rocket launch, exploration, and Orbital transfer vehicles," wrote Deutsche Bank's Edison Yu on Tuesday. While the company is "well-positioned...there appears to be some execution risk in the near-term around scaling up the launch cadence, and valuation seems mostly balanced at the moment."
Operating in space is difficult, and those "execution risks" are keeping Yu on the sidelines for now. Overall, three of five analysts, or 60%, rate the shares at Buy, according to FactSet. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. The average analyst price target for Firefly stock is about $56.
Firefly stock was up 0.1% at $45.40 in early trading. Shares returned to near the IPO price after rising as far as $73.80 after the stock offering. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 1.2%. The current price values Firefly stock at about $6.5 billion.
Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 02, 2025 09:56 ET (13:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments