Latest / AST SpaceMobile Podcast / Anpanman - $ASTS $TE $BAER $SRTA: Midday Musings and Mic Check

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Anpanman - $ASTS $TE $BAER $SRTA: Midday Musings and Mic Check · AST SpaceMobile Podcast

0:06
This is the AST Space Mobile podcast, just basically.
0:11
From the phone, be seamless, regardless of where you are.
0:15
We don't want the user even to know that it's connected by
0:17
satellite. Listen, the opportunity that we
0:22
have is very, very, very large. Hey everyone, I'm back.
0:31
I'm trying out this this new microphone.
0:34
Give me a thumbs up if it sounds OK.
0:38
I think some of the issues that X was having, I guess it was a
0:44
day ago or two days ago. I think it's been fixed, but I'm
0:48
not sure. I've had I did do a few spaces
0:52
and they seem to be OK. So and then I actually have a
0:57
zoom meeting earlier today and I used this set up and people
0:59
thought it was pretty good. So anyway, yeah, interesting
1:04
day. I I figured I'd in order to test
1:06
this out, I'd jump on and just talk about a few things and
1:11
actually talk about a number of names, not just AST space
1:15
mobile, but a few others. But first, I'll start with Asti
1:19
think I I'm going down the rabbit hole of this whole AI
1:24
data centers in space. And it's probably going to take
1:26
quite some time for me to get to a point where I'm I'm not a
1:31
complete idiot about this stuff. But I will say the more that I
1:35
dig into it, the more I think ASD is well positioned to win
1:40
some of this business going forward.
1:41
And I know there are some concerns and my concerns too.
1:44
I mean, I think concerns, meaning you don't want the
1:47
company to lose focus on the key, the key target market,
1:53
which is the ring, you know, broadband connectivity to
1:55
devices, you know, on the commercial side and defense
2:00
side. And of course there's a bunch of
2:02
non communication applications for AST as well.
2:06
But I think the important thing here is that the company doesn't
2:11
really have to lose focus. I mean, there's kind of two
2:15
dynamics here. One, the company has a huge war
2:18
chest of patents and they can go out and license these patents to
2:23
other companies and, and generate a same amount of
2:26
royalties. And As for those who are
2:28
familiar, royalties are 100% margin.
2:30
I mean, you're just basically selling your IP and someone
2:35
licenses it and they're able to deploy it in their whatever
2:38
solution they're they're looking to use it for.
2:40
So that's, that's a positive. But then the other thing that I
2:44
think people should realize is that once AST, if they get up to
2:50
10 to 12 satellites per month production cadence and once they
2:54
have the low band and mid band Bluebird constellations already
2:57
up. And you know, who knows how long
2:59
that will take. Maybe it's, you know, 2028 or so
3:03
that's going to be capacity that's built in and then you can
3:08
go direct that capacity elsewhere.
3:10
I mean, you're probably going to have to continue to build some
3:12
satellites for maintenance and perhaps the government will want
3:17
some additional satellites, but then you're going to be able to
3:19
take on customers and build things for other people.
3:22
And so this whole idea of data centers in space, you know, one
3:27
of the things that we learned, which is funny because it is a
3:29
patent from 2021. And and of course, as investors,
3:33
like some things don't come to, you don't realize them until
3:37
much later. But you know, when you listen to
3:41
Star Cloud or some of these companies that are focused on
3:43
data centers in space, the biggest issue is heat
3:46
dissipation. And you know, various people
3:50
have approaches to creating active or passive radiators and
3:56
ASD already has that built in the large phased arrays that ASD
4:01
has where, you know, on one side it's a solar array.
4:04
On the other hand, I'm sorry, on the bottom you have the antenna
4:09
elements and then within, in the middle of I'm sorry, there's,
4:13
there's someone vacuuming here. But in the middle of the, in the
4:17
microns you have the embedded processors, which are currently
4:21
Fpgas. But then will be ASICS that the
4:25
companies develop, but those those processors which do which
4:28
focus on signal processing and beamforming, they generate a ton
4:32
of heat. And so aced already has
4:34
developed the architecture to dissipate that heat across the
4:38
and that's why they have these large arrays, because they they
4:40
it acts as a very large radiator.
4:43
And so they're able to dissipate the heat.
4:45
And so if you can imagine a situation where you take an ASD
4:50
space mobile satellite, you take out the antenna elements for the
4:54
phased arrays and so you obviously save a lot of weight
4:58
there. You then for the processors
5:01
inside your places with TP US or GP US or A6, whatever your, you
5:06
know, your AI workload requires. I think you also need to upgrade
5:10
the interconnects between the processors.
5:14
I used to be a hardware investment banker and so I was,
5:17
I think I'm dating myself, but I was there at the beginning of,
5:21
of when people are developing, there was a company called
5:23
Mellanox that was developing InfiniBand, which provided high
5:26
speed interconnects for servers. And so, and that's basically the
5:32
underlying technology that's used to interconnect processors
5:36
and data centers. But you know, you'd have to
5:39
basically beef up the interconnects between
5:41
processors. And I, I think, you know, there
5:44
is some, you'd have to give up some performance because when
5:48
you get processors closer together and densify them and
5:51
you get performance gains. If you spread them out, which is
5:53
what you would do with AST, perhaps you lose some of that
5:57
performance. But at the same time, from a
5:59
heat management perspective, that's much better.
6:02
Because I think I was looking at star cloud, like they're going
6:04
to pack these things into a box and then they basically need to
6:07
figure out how to get all heat out of that box.
6:09
Whereas AST, it's like it's elegant in a sense of the array
6:13
is your radiator and you have you know, there's like there's
6:17
thermal, there's like pipes and some other materials that that
6:20
basically give off the heat. But it's elegant like the the
6:24
structure where you have the solar on the top is also that
6:30
large surface area through the entire, the sandwich is actually
6:33
dissipating heat for you. When I was looking at star
6:36
cloud, like they have all these, these like basically boxes in
6:40
the center and then they have this massive, huge, I mean,
6:46
it's, it's like football fields of solar arrays.
6:49
And and so that's how they generate the power.
6:52
And and so there's it's a very, in my opinion, it's a very
6:55
inefficient design because you know, you have to run that on AI
7:00
think it's a sun, a puller over it or that needs to be focused
7:05
on sun all the time. And, you know, there's I, I
7:09
think for those who are familiar with like debris, managing
7:13
debris and, and collisions and the Kessler syndrome, like
7:16
having having a structure that large in space, which is
7:20
basically, you know, this map large target for little objects
7:26
to go hit. And it depends on like where
7:28
it's orbiting. I think, I think Star Cloud
7:30
wants to be well above Leo because there's so much traffic
7:34
in Leo and maybe and, and so you might mitigate some of the
7:38
potential dangers there. But, but, but that's a lot of
7:42
mass and you got to get it above Leo.
7:44
I mean, launching stuff to Leo is relatively inexpensive.
7:49
You're trying to launch something to Geo.
7:50
It's super expensive. And so there's a lot of cost
7:52
considerations there. But my point is that with AST,
7:56
you, you have an existing architecture with that generates
8:01
A tremendous amount of power. It's elegant because it unfolds.
8:05
It can fit into a normal standard fairing.
8:07
And then if you can imagine, you know, like I was saying before
8:10
you, you replace the existing Fpgas or ASICS with GGPUS or, or
8:16
Tpus. And then you upgrade the
8:18
interconnects, you take out the antenna arrays because you're
8:21
not, those processors are not going to be focused on signal
8:23
processes. They're going to actually focus
8:25
on AI training and workloads, but you upgrade the
8:29
interconnects and then all of a sudden you've got a data center
8:32
in space and then you keep the QV feeder bands.
8:38
And So what ** cloud was saying is that they actually are not
8:42
going to be many information down to earth.
8:44
They're going to use optical interlinks to communicate with
8:48
either Starlink fixed wireless or or hyper fixed wireless.
8:52
And then they're going to send down signals, which that's going
8:54
to come at a performance cost because you're basically
8:56
relaying it through other people's network.
8:59
But, but the reason why Star Cloud is doing that partially is
9:02
because you know, they don't want to pay extra money for the,
9:07
and the extra money, but also the the technological
9:11
integration you need to put communications back down to
9:14
Earth and you'll need gateways and all those things.
9:16
They don't want to do that. But then more importantly,
9:19
you're going to need FCC approval for that.
9:21
So you're going to need to access and go through this
9:24
regulatory gauntlet of getting access to to feeder link
9:28
spectrum, whether that's KA band or QV feeder, you know, KA band
9:33
or QV band spectrum, you have to be licensed for that.
9:37
You're going to have to like go through this whole process of
9:39
coordinating with other people too.
9:41
And so the more elegant solution for them at least is to just try
9:45
to, you know, plug back into existing constellations.
9:50
Whereas AST is we're going to have the, the infrastructure and
9:55
it has the technology to just, you know, once, once, you know,
10:01
workload is sent up to let's say I, I don't know what we'd call
10:04
these Bluebirds. Maybe, yeah, we'll have to go
10:08
with some name for these AI data center Bluebirds, but maybe
10:11
we'll call it data birds. OK, So once information is up to
10:14
data birds and then they, they process it and they send it back
10:17
down. They can do that directly
10:19
because we have, we'll have, you know, the antennas, the main
10:24
antennas which do the QV, the high throughput feeders.
10:28
It will send that back down to Earth.
10:29
And you could put gateways next to a data, an earthbound or
10:32
Earth data center, which then would, you know, interact with
10:36
the satellite and of course save the information.
10:39
The other thing I was thinking about is for that satellite you
10:42
wouldn't, you wouldn't. Originally I thought, oh, you,
10:44
you got to probably put some NAND flash for storage, hardened
10:48
band flash for storage and or hard drives.
10:51
But then let's think about it more.
10:54
You probably are just going to use it as edge computing like
10:57
you don't need onboard storage if, if all the information is
11:01
going back down to Earth. And so that would mitigate the
11:04
need and, and save you some space as well.
11:07
Or as Katzie pointed out, and some of these applications where
11:11
it's the Department of War or SDA, Golden Dome, whatever you,
11:15
you might need AI processing out in space.
11:19
And so maybe you do put some amount of storage on this
11:23
databird. And then you know, when, when
11:27
these other satellites that are in golden Dome need AI
11:30
processing intelligence, they would go to these databirds and,
11:34
and use them to, to do those calculations and then get the
11:38
probation back. But the key thing here is that
11:42
AST has pretty much developed all the building blocks for
11:45
making this a reality. And you know, it's something
11:50
that, for example, Hennessy Fund who are institutional investors,
11:54
they've been long time shareholders who I respect.
11:56
When I, when I was talking with one of the portfolio managers
11:58
back during the Block 1 Bluebird launch, he was telling me, you
12:05
know, we were talking about the future of the company, that
12:08
there, there's a lot of applicability here beyond just
12:10
communications. And, and we've seen that already
12:12
with, with the non communications applications that
12:16
they won from various government agencies.
12:19
Obviously those are secret. So we don't really know what
12:22
they are, but we can guess, you know, some of it's electronic
12:25
warfare, some of it is PMT, you know, GPS backup and, and what
12:29
have you radar. But then, you know, it was this
12:33
gentleman's point that AST wants that's constant.
12:37
Once the constellations are up, you basically have this massive
12:40
power generating capacity out in space.
12:42
And you can do a lot of things with that whether, you know,
12:44
there are some people who were, which I don't think at least
12:47
today doesn't make sense economically.
12:49
You know, you generate power, then you use some type of
12:51
frequencies to beam that power back down to Earth.
12:54
That was like, that's what I was thinking of when he was talking
12:56
to me. But I, it didn't occur to me
12:58
that this whole notion of data centers actually makes sense
13:03
because you need, you need a big satellite out there that can
13:06
generate power and dissipate heat.
13:07
And that's exactly what ASD does and what it has patents around.
13:13
And so, yeah, you have the building blocks.
13:16
And for people who are like, well, I'm not sure I want, I
13:19
want to be running that business.
13:20
Well, you don't have to run the business.
13:21
You can either license the technology out or you can build
13:24
satellites for the people and have some service revenue in
13:28
terms of maintaining the data interconnects.
13:30
But then, you know, for all intents and purposes, maybe that
13:33
satellite is owned by Google or, you know, Microsoft.
13:39
I, I think for SpaceX, they probably are going to do
13:41
something similar. And so it's Amazon and they'll
13:45
just be fully integrated into their stacks.
13:47
You know, Amazon has their own applications in AI and of course
13:51
we all know SpaceX is vertically integrated and they'll be using
13:56
that for Grok and, you know, they'll probably sell this
14:00
capability to, you know, defense customers, But it's not, it's
14:07
not out of the, it's not out of the question.
14:08
It it, it actually makes a ton of sense that AST should just
14:11
leverage the technology they have and the capacity they have.
14:13
Now, obviously in terms of timing, they, they've got to
14:16
focus on getting your consolations up.
14:19
But if I was ASTI would, and maybe they're already doing this
14:23
and they, my guess is they probably already have had
14:25
discussions with Microsoft and Google, who, you know, is an
14:28
investor. But I, I would dedicate some
14:32
crack team of employees and call it skunk works and just have
14:36
them focusing on developing this, this other business
14:40
because it's huge, right? And, and I think I kook and I
14:46
talked about this before, my initial reaction when I heard
14:49
about data centers in space, when I saw, I mean, the key
14:52
thing for me was like, I saw the star cloud video and I saw that
14:55
thing floating in space and I just laughed out.
14:56
I was like, that doesn't make any sense.
14:59
That's crazy. But then Cook and I talked about
15:02
it yesterday. And the The funny thing is, like
15:06
often times in life, when people or when you come across ideas
15:10
that are crazy and you laugh them off, you often end up being
15:14
wrong about those. And you know, we talked about
15:17
the, the case of, for me, it was Bitcoin like back in 2011.
15:22
I remember when I was at this head fund and, and the IT guy
15:25
was talking about mining bitcoins and he was doing it on
15:27
his PC on this like the server at work.
15:30
And I asked him about it. And then I just laughed at it.
15:32
And I was like, Oh yeah, that sounds like a fraud.
15:35
And it's not going to not going to go anywhere.
15:37
And then of course, like I was really wrong.
15:40
And then, you know, Fast forward to I think it was like 2016,
15:44
2000. No, 2017 is when I started
15:46
buying Bitcoin at 11,000. And then, you know, my story
15:49
around Bitcoin is like I bought some, I bought initially at
15:52
18,000 busman 11 and bought all the way down to like 3500 and
15:56
then and then it was like totally projected.
15:59
But then a few years later I held it and I sold most of it at
16:04
65,000 and then the rest of 55. And then, you know, I haven't
16:07
touched it since. But the point of that is that
16:11
often times when people come to you and by the way, like this is
16:14
the same reaction for AST Space Mobile 2.
16:16
Like if you were to go pitch people on the street about it.
16:19
And obviously it's different because Starlink has helped
16:21
educate you. But if you talked about ASD
16:23
Space Mobile 3 or 4 years ago, people would just laugh at you
16:26
and be like, that's, that's ridiculous.
16:27
It doesn't make any sense. Like it's not going to work.
16:30
How's that possible existing cell phone?
16:32
And then is it really a market? Like who would pay for that?
16:35
But of course now it's, it's very different.
16:37
And so I think this data centers in space like is actually it's a
16:42
tangible application. And if you think about where AI
16:45
compute is going and the need of resources for it, it doesn't
16:48
make sense to keep those on Earth.
16:50
It makes more, it may as launch becomes much cheaper, it would
16:53
make more economic and financial sense to go put this stuff up in
16:57
space. And you know, from a
16:59
environmental perspective, the amount of power required,
17:03
cooling, all that stuff on Earth, you're going to really
17:06
run into serious resource constraints.
17:08
And so I think putting in space makes a lot of sense.
17:11
But obviously, my, my personal concern is that all this stuff
17:15
needs to be environmentally sound when you deorbit it.
17:19
And I think the way that some people are talking about these
17:22
these opportunities is that maybe if you have a reusable
17:25
secondary stage for some of these launch vehicles, maybe
17:28
they can bring some of this stuff back and do it in such a
17:32
way where not everything has to get burned up into the
17:34
atmosphere, because then that introduces like another
17:36
environmental problem. But anyway, I think, yeah, I
17:41
think the fundamental building blocks are there for AST space
17:45
mobile. We're we're talking to all the
17:48
tech companies and then we've got M and OS as well.
17:50
Who, you know, all these AT&T, Verizon, the off enterprise
17:54
customers, they also run data centers.
17:55
And and so, yeah, I, I think the phone for AST is going to start
18:01
ringing off the hook in the coming months as people start to
18:03
look around and see, OK, who who can actually, who has the
18:06
technology, who can actually build this stuff and who has
18:09
like experience. And, and that also includes like
18:12
these hyperscaler companies, whether it's Irens, COR, Weave
18:17
and BISI mean, all those companies, yeah, they're,
18:20
they've got a lock on earth and, and they're doing their thing.
18:23
But if they're smart, they're going to start pivoting into
18:26
trying to figure out who on the space side can help them get
18:29
into space. And so I think we're early, like
18:32
they're on the cusp of this new theme.
18:36
And we just happen to be, I mean, we're lucky we just happen
18:39
to be in the right place at the right time.
18:40
Like there's, I think AC Space Mobile, Rocket Lab, some of
18:45
these other companies are probably going to be well
18:46
positioned. But the other thing I would say
18:50
is that, yeah, I mean, for the companies, there's going to be
18:55
this. We're going to have to manage
18:57
this. Where obviously you don't want
19:00
to talk about this type of stuff until you actually get a, a
19:03
regular cadence of production for your, what you're doing at
19:07
the core, which is, you know, getting the first two
19:10
constellations up. But I'm going to guess like over
19:14
time, you're going to have cell side research analyst and, and
19:17
retail, You know, it's definitely going to be a
19:20
question I'm asking management, you know, how is this new market
19:24
opportunity? Is it applicable to you?
19:26
And, and I think they, as we all know, in space, there aren't
19:29
many applications that actually generate money.
19:31
I mean, the, the key one is, is communications.
19:34
That's big. And you know, people talk about
19:37
Earth observation, but it's not really of scale.
19:39
And, and often times people are looking for, for an application
19:45
in space actually generates money.
19:46
And, and launch, of course, is, is another, but this one feels
19:49
pretty tangible and real. And it could, it could be
19:52
ballooned into something big. And it's something that it's
19:55
like the analogy of NVIDIA where people originally used NVIDIA
19:59
processors for games, but then that was applicable to doing AI
20:05
workloads and, and machine learning and all that.
20:08
And so the company exploded. I mean, it created a process for
20:11
one thing, but then it became applicable for other
20:14
applications. And I think that's what we're
20:15
kind of sitting on here with AST space mobile.
20:19
And so it, it's something that I'm trying to get smarter
20:21
around. And I know Kook and and others
20:23
and and Catsy but. Yeah, I think it's, it's
20:26
something to watch. And as interest picks up, it's,
20:31
it's important to note that there's not, if you think about
20:34
all the players who are servicing space, there aren't
20:37
many companies and, and this includes Starlink too.
20:40
And and Amazon, there aren't many companies that are building
20:45
because Amazon isn't Starlink isn't, you know, Planet Labs.
20:50
I know they're they're putting up two demonstrator like
20:52
Cubesats for Google to figure out if some of the some of the
20:56
hardware is actually going to work in space.
20:58
But there are very few companies that can actually put together
21:01
A2 to three ton satellite and go launch it into space that has a
21:07
tremendous power generating capacity that can dissipate heat
21:13
that can communicate, you know, with Earth, right, because like
21:17
Starling, their satellites are pretty small and in Kuiper the
21:23
as well like they're those satellites are small.
21:26
So if you, if you just think about the future and think about
21:31
what the company has assembled here, I think I think we're
21:34
really well positioned and we're early.
21:37
Like, I don't think sell sites really thinking about this, the
21:39
research analysts, nor is the general market.
21:42
But I guess today is December 5th.
21:46
You know, we talked about it earlier in the week, but you
21:48
know, let's plant the flag. I think, I think the great, this
21:52
great theme and this narrative is, is going to shift in the
21:54
coming months and we're going to be a big beneficiary.
21:59
But anyway, I, I was going to talk about some of these other
22:01
names too. And, and so 'cause I've taken,
22:05
you know, I, I've, I've had in addition, AST space mobile,
22:09
I've, I've had smaller speculative positions and, and a
22:13
few of these other names. And so I just really want to
22:15
talk about some news as I test my microphone setup, which seems
22:20
like it's working. But yeah, the, the first one is
22:24
T1 Energy. You know, this is a company that
22:27
used to be Frayer for the, for all those that remember, Frayer
22:30
was this European based player that was going to build
22:34
batteries like a huge battery factory.
22:36
And then basically, I think the economics just didn't work out.
22:39
And so the company pivoted. There was a company called Trina
22:43
Solar, who, you know, right, right.
22:47
Trina Solar is one of the top and, you know, Chinese based top
22:50
producer of solar modules and cells.
22:53
And they were building this huge factory in Dallas that can
22:56
produce up to five gigawatts of annual, you know, you know,
23:01
solar modules. And right as Trump was getting
23:04
elected, they saw the right in the wall that the regulatory
23:06
regime's going to change and that, you know, Chinese owned
23:08
factory wasn't going to be no bueno, right?
23:11
And so, so prayer just management with the new
23:15
management because all the old management left, the new
23:18
management actually put together this sweetheart deal where they,
23:21
they acquired this, this new brand new spanking new module
23:26
factory in Dallas that can produce, you know, 5 gigawatts
23:29
of of modules a year for sweetheart price.
23:32
And, you know, Trina is still a modest shareholder.
23:36
I think they have, they sold some down.
23:38
I think they're down to 10%. But, you know, there are some
23:40
like technology agreements and transition agreements.
23:42
But for all intensive purposes, like this U.S. company, what
23:46
used to be frayers now T1 Energy, they bought this Dallas
23:48
plant. They are also building another
23:51
plant in Austin. And they're trying to get
23:53
vertically integrated. Because the key thing for, for
23:55
this company is that even though people over the last few years,
24:01
yeah, given the Trump administration and, and the
24:03
shift away from green energy, you know, solar has been heated,
24:08
but it's the most efficient, cost efficient and effective,
24:11
you know, power generating source.
24:13
But what's interesting is that this whole AI demand for power
24:17
has changed the outlook for, for this and other renewable
24:21
sectors. I think nowadays, people, you
24:23
know, the right way to think about energy is that all energy
24:26
is going to be needed, right? Whether it's renewable, fossil
24:30
fuels, nuclear, whatever, it's right because there's going to
24:33
be such a huge demand that you're going to need to tap all
24:36
these sources. And so I think, for example, T1
24:39
Energy, the CEO recently met with JD Vance.
24:43
I think a key talking point to the administration is that here
24:47
you've got a vertically integrated player, American
24:51
owned and staffed and is expanding, you know, basically
24:55
creating like an American champion for solar.
24:57
You're going to need all this stuff in order meet the energy
25:00
needs for the future, especially if if the US is going to become
25:04
the leader in AI to, you know, power all these data centers.
25:08
And so T1, you know, has a pretty, let's see here.
25:15
Let me just talk a bit about financials.
25:18
I mean, so the company's in growth mode right now.
25:20
It actually has real financials. They, you know, for fiscal year
25:25
2025, they're going to do about 814 million of revenue.
25:28
And this is from 2024, basically a 0, right?
25:31
And so they ramped up production this year, you're going to have
25:34
27 million of EBITDA. And so it's a real company,
25:38
right? And the biggest knock for the
25:40
company or it's not a knock, it's just the fact of life is
25:42
that they are going to have to raise a pretty significant
25:44
amount of capital in order to finish, you know, hitting full
25:49
capacity at their Dallas factory and then ramping up their Austin
25:53
factory. But you know, this is a company
25:56
that's going to generate according to the Street by 2028,
26:00
almost 2 billion of revenue and 425,000,000 of EBITDA.
26:04
And so what's great is, you know, as, as a retail individual
26:08
investor, the, the story is interesting because that you,
26:12
you had like Frayer, which had probably a broken shareholder
26:16
base and you know, obviously that that venture failed.
26:19
And then this company pivoted and acquired this manufacturing,
26:24
this brand new solar plant. And they, they laid out plans to
26:27
expand that to become vertically integrated, you know, building
26:30
additional capacity in Austin and trying to source, you know,
26:36
domestic cells and, and leveraging energy credits.
26:40
But you, you have this story where it's a pivot, right?
26:43
And so you're going to have a turnover and shareholders, you
26:45
know, research analyst as well. And so it's kind of a tweener.
26:47
It's not, it's, it's not Frayer and it's, it's new, this new
26:51
company, but it's, it's a new story.
26:53
And, and obviously, you know, new management team, people want
26:56
to see execution. And so you're kind of at this
26:59
point where the company trades, you know, at some significant
27:02
discount because people want to see what they're going to do and
27:06
if they can execute. And then on top of that, you
27:08
know, they do have to raise a pretty large quantum of capital
27:10
over time in order to, you know, expend CapEx in order to rent
27:14
these plants up. And so you know, it's similar to
27:18
AST in a sense of, you know, being back in, I don't know
27:21
2023-2024 where you've got this significant amount of capital
27:26
you have to raise and you have to execute and you know, you've
27:29
got to get market credibility to go do that.
27:32
On the flip side for, for T1 Energy, they actually are
27:36
generating revenues now in EBITDA and so that's good.
27:40
But they've got to quickly get to a level of vertical
27:43
integration where these these these tax credits that they get
27:47
for manufacturing solar panels, you know, you get domestic tax
27:50
credits in order to preserve those, they really have to
27:53
quickly get to a certain level of vertical integrate, you know,
27:56
domestic content basically in order to to to generate those.
28:01
But but yeah, it's an interesting story.
28:03
I've written about it. There's, there's a few other
28:05
people that have written about it as well.
28:07
The news out today, I just wanted to to cover because, you
28:12
know, on the one hand there was a little bit of bad news and
28:14
then there's some really good news.
28:15
And I'll cover the bad news first.
28:17
So the bad news is that the company issued this 8K and there
28:23
is a, there was a disclosure that they received a subpoena
28:27
from the Department of Justice. Yeah, Department of Justice and
28:30
the SEC. And so this is related to what
28:34
appears to be some personal trading on behalf of an
28:38
executive, this executive, and I think they were a board member.
28:43
So I think it's one individual. They traded stock.
28:47
They basically sold stock in the second-half of 2023.
28:50
And apparently, you know, this person got permission according
28:55
to the company's insider trading policies.
28:57
But then, you know, it was approved.
28:59
But then I guess the DOJ and SEC are seeing somebody that looks
29:04
questionable and have this inquiry into the company.
29:07
And so this is, you know, this is a bit of a cloud over the
29:11
company, but it's not, in my opinion, I don't think it's that
29:14
material. The so let's talk about like
29:17
what a bad DOJSEC subpoena or civil demand or criminal demand
29:22
would look like that could hurt a company.
29:24
If if you were to get one of these things and it was related
29:28
to sales practices or revenue recognition or something like
29:31
that, that would be really, really bad, right?
29:34
Because then that's actually an implication of the companies on
29:37
the company itself. There's also questioning its
29:41
financials, what they have to restate and all that stuff.
29:42
But this is actually related to what I, it seems like from what
29:46
I could read, you know, someone perhaps not following company
29:50
procedure or maybe their company procedure wasn't, you know,
29:54
kosher to the point of meeting, you know, I guess avoiding any
29:58
legal questions from the DOJ or SEC.
30:02
And so this is an inquiry into this particular person's sale of
30:05
stock. You know, do they, my guess is
30:07
like, do they have material information?
30:09
You know, it this, I believe they had to sell stock because
30:11
it was collateral against a personal loan.
30:13
And my guess is that personal loan was called and they had to
30:17
sell the stock in order to meet that loan.
30:19
And may I'm just, you know, I'm speculating, but maybe there was
30:23
some material information that was happening at that time, but
30:25
this person had maybe they weren't aware of that
30:28
information or maybe they were. But you know, that this, the
30:30
facts and circumstances may have looked like this person was
30:34
selling to get ahead of something bad when it looks like
30:37
maybe they were selling because they had no choice, because
30:40
they, they had to meet the obligations of this personal
30:41
loan. So anyway, but I think it's
30:43
important to understand that it's not related to, you know,
30:48
the company's financials or operations.
30:50
It's really just an individual's personal trading.
30:54
And so then when you, when you look at that, you have to ask
30:57
yourself, well, is it because they is it, is it going to
31:01
target someone who's important? Like the last thing you want is
31:04
a key man or key person to be targeted in an investigation and
31:08
then, you know, maybe they're critical to the company and they
31:10
have to resign and that's not good.
31:12
But it looks like this trading happened in the second-half of
31:15
2023. I'll just note that most of
31:19
Frayer's management and board exited the company when when the
31:23
company pivoted to T1 Energy and and did their transaction or
31:27
sorry, yeah, became T1 Energy they when they acquired the
31:30
solar manufacturing assets then that was back in December of
31:34
2024. So a lot of people are new.
31:36
And so if I just go through T1 Energy's management and board 10
31:41
years, you know, the CEO of of T1 Energy, Dan Daniel Bartello,
31:47
he joined in November of 2024, the CFO, June 2024, the CTO,
31:54
January 2024, the chief operating Officer, August 2025.
32:01
I mean, if you look at the entire executive, you know, team
32:06
and I'm looking at Bloomberg, there's like there's 11
32:09
individuals. The earliest that anyone joined
32:12
was January 2024 and and then everyone joined after.
32:17
And so this, this investigation does not include any of those
32:21
executives. And so I'm guessing that the
32:24
person who is in question have has left the firm or left the
32:29
company like long ago, right. And so then I flip over to T1
32:34
Energy's board and you kind of have the same thing.
32:38
However, there's three individuals who would fit the
32:43
potential targeted range. 1 is Jessica Strine, but she joined
32:48
in November of 2023. And so it's a pretty green board
32:51
member. Might, I'm guessing that she
32:53
probably didn't have a personal loan against stock because I
32:56
just, you know, you get it like a small grant initially when you
33:00
join the board, it's probably not material enough to take a
33:02
personal loan against it. So she's probably not that
33:05
person. And then you have Daniel Doctor,
33:07
Daniel Steingard and Peter Matryde.
33:10
Steingard joined the board in January of 2023.
33:13
And so he could be potential individual of interest or it
33:17
could be this Peter Matrygi who joined in July of 2021.
33:23
However, you just look at their backgrounds, I don't think,
33:27
yeah, I don't think either were an executive of Frayer at the
33:33
time, although actually I take that back.
33:39
So maybe, so maybe it is Peter Vitroy because he is it, he's a
33:46
sitting board member now and he used to be the CEO of Frayer
33:50
Actually, you know what, nevermind he he left Frayer SEO
33:54
on July 2021. I think that's right.
34:00
But anyway, I guess the most important point is like it, this
34:04
person who's being investigated is not a person of consequence
34:07
because it doesn't, it's not an existing executive and it's not
34:12
a majority of the board. It could be one of these two
34:15
individuals, but it doesn't seem to be case because I think the
34:19
individual in question was a board member and an executive,
34:23
which probably, if I had to guess, and I haven't really
34:27
looked closely into this, but it's probably the former CEO
34:30
because CEOs typically have their position as CEO and then
34:35
often times they also take a dual chair of the board.
34:37
And so if it's somebody who was on the board and the executive,
34:40
you know, it's probably CEO or could be, you know, again, I got
34:44
to dig into this, but maybe it's the CFO 'cause I don't know if
34:46
you have the CFO on the board or, but, or maybe a, a founder.
34:50
But anyway, I, I think the most important point is like, I think
34:54
this investigation, depending on where it's going to go, I'm I'm
34:59
not sure the company will face any penalties.
35:01
The person could whoever it is, but you know, innocent till
35:04
proven guilty. So what we'll see.
35:05
But at least there's not a key man risk here that somebody that
35:11
somebody could currently in the, in the executive ranks could
35:14
get, could get the boot. So that's important.
35:18
But but yeah, I, I just wanted to cover that.
35:21
Let's see, I'm going to shift now to this company, Bridger.
35:28
Bridger is an interesting name. It's, it's one that I had a
35:31
speculative position on last year, just given this huge
35:35
increase in wildfire. And it's a forgotten SPAC just
35:38
like some of these others too. And, and so the key thing is
35:42
like, you know, the, I, I, I didn't know it was a politically
35:45
charged name until I was invested.
35:47
And then, and then of course, I found out later there was like
35:50
some short sellers and other people who had pressured the
35:53
company. Primarily you have Democratic,
35:55
you know, background cause the former CEO, Tim Sheehy, he
36:00
actually left and ran for Senate and won.
36:03
And so as part of his campaign to run for U.S.
36:06
Senate, there was a big smear campaign about, you know, the
36:10
company Bridger and, and you know, various dealings that he
36:13
had with the company and I think the, the city of Bozeman or, or
36:17
state of Montana. But Fast forward to today, you
36:21
know the company it is for those that don't know, they their
36:26
primary asset or most visible asset are the Super scooper
36:29
planes that pick up water and and dump them on fires.
36:33
They also have air, air attack aircraft that manage, you know,
36:39
fire situations and communicate with ground crews.
36:42
And so they have like a whole host of different, you know, air
36:46
assets. And then they also have this
36:47
application that first responders and firefighters have
36:50
in order to coordinate, like how to, you know, as some of you
36:54
guys know, especially on the West Coast, like for some of
36:58
these fast moving fires, you need to coordinate with
37:00
firefighters and where to put firewalls up and avoid getting
37:03
surrounded by fires, which unfortunately, you know, a
37:06
number of firefighters die every year by getting subsumed by
37:09
these things, which is which is bad.
37:11
But yeah, the company's, the company use is, was a forgotten
37:16
SPAC. You know, I, I started buying
37:18
some of these warrants like long ago as, as speculation when we
37:22
had these huge California wildfires last year and that
37:26
actually this whole, you know, wildfire season, there's not
37:30
really a season anymore. It's actually year round.
37:34
But the interesting thing about the company is that they've got
37:36
these legislative tailwinds. So after that, you know, the
37:39
wildfires around LA happened, There's been a refocus on on
37:45
deploying federal dollars and state dollars to to build out
37:49
infrastructure to fight these fires.
37:51
And a big part of that is these air assets, right?
37:53
And so I don't want to like ramble on about this company too
37:56
much, but the key thing is that, you know, the company's highly
37:59
leveraged a $100 million market cap I'll cure and they've got
38:06
about, you know, 600 million of debt and 50 million of cash.
38:11
So the enterprise value is like 656 hundred 50 million.
38:15
But what I find interesting about the company is that, you
38:17
know, it's growing, it's profitable.
38:19
They just added two additional super scooper planes, which you
38:22
can't, you can't buy these things because there's there's
38:25
really, there's basically like no availability in production.
38:28
So they bought these two super scoopers out of Spain that can
38:32
generate 8,8,000,000 of EBITDA each.
38:35
And you know, they're, they're bringing, they're potentially
38:37
bring those back to the US, so they might keep them out in
38:39
Europe. But anyway, the company went
38:41
through a number of refinancing transactions.
38:44
They also did a sale lease back of their headquarters in
38:46
Bozeman, Mt. And so financially they're well
38:48
positioned because they before they were kind of under the gun
38:51
with some of, I think, you know, the previous debt that they had
38:55
outstanding, they were under a bit of pressure to basically pay
38:59
that off and, and refinance it. But they did a recent
39:01
refinancing. They also did a sale lease back
39:03
which allowed them to buy these two do these two super scooper
39:06
plants which were being renovate or that were being refurbished.
39:11
And so the company is well positioned.
39:14
It's a name that's been forgotten.
39:15
Like there's no, there's basically like no institutional
39:18
sponsorship. There's one research analyst
39:19
that covers it. However, as I mentioned before,
39:23
you've got these legislative tailwinds in the US which are
39:25
going to be very positive for the company.
39:28
And then on top of that, you that the news that came out
39:31
yesterday is that the chairman of the board bought 300,000
39:35
shares and paid 400. And sorry, not for $540,000 for
39:40
them. And so for me, like, you know,
39:44
the chair, after all these transactions had happened, you
39:46
know, obviously you don't want to do it ahead of them and have
39:49
material information and basically get accused of insider
39:51
training. But after everything was all
39:53
said and done, this this gentleman bought a bunch of
39:56
stock because he sees positive prospects for the company.
39:59
And so, yeah, it's just, it's a big, I think vote of confidence.
40:05
And you know there's a. There's another guy who follows
40:10
the name and does a lot of research work and Devrin who we
40:14
talked about this name quite a bit.
40:15
And so I think, you know, this is a tweener type of situation
40:18
where there's no institutional support, no research, but the
40:21
company's executing, you know, it's, it's growing revenues.
40:25
Let's see, like this year it's the projections are 121 million
40:32
of revenue and that's up from 98 million in 2024 and 2026 will be
40:37
133 million and then EBITDA of 37 million this year going to 49
40:42
million next year. And so, yeah, the company's on
40:45
this like steady execution. I've talked with management once
40:47
and you know, I think they're pretty solid.
40:49
And by the way, I also talked with P100G as well, which I'll,
40:52
I'll get back to. But I think, yeah, I think this
40:56
the story, it's, it's basically like for anyone interested, it's
40:59
a highly levered call option, right, 'cause the equity value
41:02
is only 100 million out of enterprise value of 600 million.
41:05
So any, you know, financial improvement and execution is
41:11
going to accrue in a leveraged way to the equity.
41:13
Because like when you have a big swing in enterprise value and
41:16
the equity is such a big small part of that, then you could
41:19
that's when you like experience serious OPS, right?
41:22
And so, and then of course, I own warrants, which the good
41:26
thing about these things and yeah, 11:50 strike.
41:29
That's, that seems like pretty crazy to be out there.
41:32
But great thing about these warrants is that the implied
41:36
ball is not that high. So I think today they were
41:38
training on like 88% implied ball.
41:41
The company doesn't have any options that trade on it.
41:44
But then you can just look at historic wall, which let me just
41:48
look here, most recent 68 historic wall I think was like
41:54
it's 65 and it's it's been going up.
41:57
I think historic wall, if you look at previous years was in
42:01
the 80s, nineties, hundreds. But yeah, I think I think if the
42:05
company can execute and and it starts getting more interest and
42:08
awareness, you could see the stock really performed in 2026.
42:11
And these warrants that I have, they actually expire in January,
42:14
January 25th, 2028. So you have a lot of time on
42:17
these, but but yeah, I just wanted to to point that one out.
42:22
The other thing I, I was going to say is that I, I have been
42:26
talking to, you know, Bridger and T1 Energy and AST space
42:33
mobile for that matter. I've, I've approached the idea
42:36
of doing a fireside chat similar to what I did with strata
42:40
critical yesterday. And so I know T1 Energy, but
42:43
Bridger have expressed interest. And so you'll be on the lookout
42:46
for those. I might be able to schedule
42:47
those in the coming weeks. But then the other one is of
42:51
course the big granddaddy, which is AST space Mobile.
42:54
You know, I've, I've talked about hosting Scott from time to
42:57
time over the years and I, I think he's always been a little,
43:02
a little iffy about it. But, you know, I've been
43:04
promised at the right time we'll probably do it.
43:06
And so I don't know if that's going to happen, you know, that
43:08
there's probably a logical time to do that, like perhaps after
43:12
getting, you know, two or three launches under their belt or or
43:17
four and then and then doing a, a space to discuss that, it
43:22
could make sense. But but yeah, I think I think
43:25
that that would be a really, you know, obviously a well received
43:29
space, but let's see here. I guess another thing, the last
43:34
thing I'll I'll close with I did have this this space with strata
43:38
critical yesterday, which I for me, it was good because I I
43:40
learned quite a bit, but I didn't want to re emphasize like
43:44
that that name Bridger T1 energy.
43:48
You know, Once Upon a time it was all like these are all and
43:52
I, I guess I I just can't help myself.
43:54
I get attracted to these situations of these like small
43:56
cap companies that are pretty much unknown and they kind of go
43:59
through, I guess in the in case of T1 Energy and Strata, they go
44:03
through a transformatory event where you know, which involves
44:08
like a sweetheart deal for T1 Energy was buying Trina Solar's
44:12
US domestic manufacturing assets because the Chinese had to
44:16
offload that and then their choice.
44:17
And so they, they basically gave it to not gave it, but they sold
44:21
it to T1 Energy at a, at a very sweetheart price.
44:25
And then for Strata critical selling a money losing passenger
44:30
business to Joby and getting a really good price for that and
44:34
then flipping that those proceeds to go by Keystone
44:37
Perfusion which is generating a same amount of revenue when
44:40
EBITDA is profitable as growing like 50% year over year.
44:45
They paid really reasonable evaluation multiple for it, but
44:48
you have this like company that was originally Blade and you
44:54
know, people were investing in that on the promise of
44:57
electrification and, you know, bringing EVEVOTLS to, you know,
45:02
consumer passengers. And so you had like this one
45:05
shareholder base. But then of course they they
45:07
sold that business and there were a number of people who were
45:10
disappointed in that. And then they bought Keystone
45:14
perfusion to focus on medical, you know, critical medical
45:17
logistics, which is basically, you know, organ transplant end
45:20
to end. So, you know, getting organs
45:23
from patients and then transporting that by ground and
45:26
then by air if necessary, you know, private jets, helicopters
45:29
and then getting it to the donor, the recipients who need
45:31
it, which are these are, you know, high value procedures.
45:36
But here in strata critical, you have a similar situation where
45:39
it's kind of an orphan where the previous research analysts who
45:43
were covering it for the electrification of flight, you
45:48
know, story EVOTLS basically those people have dropped
45:51
coverage. And then you basically need to
45:53
go out and find new Southside analysts to cover your company.
45:56
And so that takes some period of time.
45:58
And then on top of that, you've got a previous shareholders who
46:00
were invested in it for one particular story.
46:03
And then they find out like, oh, the story has shifted.
46:05
And so it's going to take time for them to essentially turn out
46:09
of that that that company. And so that's kind of the
46:13
opportunity in a lot of these names where you have an orphan
46:17
company that's going through change.
46:19
And as long as they execute and continue to, you know, garner
46:25
credibility with investors and meet with, with new
46:27
institutions, like that's kind of the opportunity where as a
46:31
retail investor, you can buy some of these names for a pretty
46:34
decent valuation discount. Because you know, on the one
46:37
hand, it, it doesn't fit in your transition between shareholder
46:41
bases, research analyst, it doesn't fit in immediately into
46:45
what it was before. And, and you're basically
46:47
starting all over. And, and so as a retail
46:50
investor, you can buy some of these names that have good
46:54
stories that you know, are financially doing well.
46:56
And there's, you know, there's catalyst ahead and you, you
47:00
believe management can execute. And so that's kind of the
47:04
opportunity. And so that's why, you know, for
47:06
strata, like I became interested in it.
47:08
I mean, I was, I owned it for blade for kind of the, the dual
47:13
story there. But then once they sold the
47:16
passenger business into the steel, it came a lot more
47:19
interesting for me. So that's why, you know, I
47:21
hosted management and, you know, we talked about it.
47:23
But anyway, maybe I'll end the space there.
47:27
You know, I guess we talked about quite a few different
47:29
names here. Hopefully my mic sounded OK.
47:34
Actually, let me just look at the comments here.
47:36
Oh, new mic sounds awesome. It's great.
47:39
What is? What's the deal with SMXI?
47:41
Don't even know what that is. And of course, Corey made a
47:44
little Hey, the little beam will be speaking to Mike.
47:49
But yeah, that's, that's pretty much my my Ted talk.
47:52
I don't know if anyone had questions, feel free to put them
47:56
in the comments or yeah, I'm, I'm glad this this mic is
48:00
actually working because it sounds good to me.
48:02
I have these like headphones on so I can hear myself, which it's
48:07
not just a good thing, but yeah, maybe I'll talk about little
48:12
about the markets. I think.
48:14
Yeah, it's, it is weird. We have we have like pretty big
48:17
intraday swings as I think you know the, the economic numbers
48:23
today actually looked really good.
48:24
You had core PCE index coming in line and then consumer
48:29
confidence was was up and inflation short and long term
48:34
expectations are down. So going back to what I talked
48:37
about earlier this week, I think we're we have a really solid
48:41
environment for risk assets because you got you got the new
48:45
Fed chair who's coming in investment, who seems to be, you
48:49
know, in full alignment with with the Trump administration
48:52
for cutting rates. As long as obviously inflation
48:55
stays, you know, subdued, which is, you know, his initial
48:58
comments were that he sees inflation being subdued in at
49:01
least the PC numbers today indicate that and expectations
49:03
as well. So in particular for actually
49:09
for all these names, but also for ASD space mobile, I think
49:12
for companies that have hard catalysts that are coming up
49:16
that are going to be positive for AST.
49:17
That's, you know, we've, it's crazy.
49:19
We've got the Bluebird 6 launch out of India, Israel LBM three
49:27
rocket, like that's going to happen in about 10 days.
49:29
And for those that are, they're going to be around, I think we
49:32
might do a live broadcast with Kook and, and maybe Katzie and
49:38
some others who might actually just do a live broadcast since
49:41
we're not going to be in India, but we're going to be be sitting
49:44
at our homes, you know, biting our nails to, to watch and of
49:47
course be excited to watch that launch.
49:48
But but yeah, that's going to happen in just over a week's
49:53
time. And then you've got, you know,
49:57
the, the, the shipping of BB7 and of course the shipping of
50:02
the next two batches as well. And, and launches short the day
50:05
after. So, so I think the setup for AST
50:07
is, is, is going to be really positive.
50:09
You've got all these great cows that are coming up and then, you
50:12
know, we also have Scott speaking at the UBS conference
50:16
on Monday. And so, you know, will we find
50:19
out some information by then? We'll see.
50:21
But but yeah, I think intraday market volatility aside, I think
50:28
December year end is shaping up to be great.
50:31
Of course, as we head into the new year, you know, everyone
50:35
talks about the January facts. Oh, you know what, I actually, I
50:38
will point out that as we head into the end of the year, be on
50:42
the lookout for bargains. You know, sometimes you'll,
50:44
especially in some of these illiquid names, you'll see heavy
50:48
selling related to tax lost harvesting into the end of the
50:52
year. And so just as a reminder, like
50:55
last last year, I was able to buy a bunch of Satixfy warrants
51:00
for less than a penny for a fraction of a penny.
51:03
And, and then those warrants ended up, you know, far laying
51:08
into a trade where Satixfy was acquired a few months later.
51:12
And those words ended up being worth $0.87.
51:15
And so it's always good to keep an eye out for some of these,
51:21
you know, whether it's warrants or stock in, in various names
51:24
that might have been forgotten or someone's like sick of it.
51:27
And they want, and they want to harvest, you know, maybe
51:30
they've, they've made a lot of money in other ears and they
51:32
want to harvest losses. And so you will see some of this
51:35
tax loss selling towards the end of December in, in certain
51:39
names. And then of course, you know,
51:41
once you get into January, then you have this January effect
51:43
where people, especially for hedge funds that are on a
51:47
calendar year, you know, it's a new year, right?
51:50
And so they're looking to deploy capital.
51:51
And that's also true for retail investors too.
51:54
So you, you sometimes were typically see a rally in January
51:59
and some of those names that were sold down for tax
52:01
harvesting, you might see a bounce back is that after
52:04
December 31st, there's no need to sell some of those names
52:08
because you're not going to get obviously tax credit for them.
52:10
And so that pressure abates. And then some you see some of
52:13
these things rebound quite nicely.
52:15
So anyway, Dia, it's just something to keep in mind, keep
52:19
keep focused on because there will be some of these
52:21
opportunities going to end of the year.
52:23
Often as people ask me, it's like what opportunities you're
52:26
seeing, but it's there, There is this balance where it's like,
52:29
well, I need to buy the opportunity before I tell people
52:32
about it because I tell everyone about it and I can't get into
52:35
it. But but yeah, if I do see
52:37
something, I'll let people know. And yeah, that's actually on my
52:42
to do, To Do List. I probably need to start
52:44
tracking some of these names that that might come under
52:46
pressure into the year end. But anyway, yeah, thanks for
52:50
joining. It sounds like thankfully this,
52:52
this microphone setup is working and it's, it's, it's working
52:55
well. And yeah, we'll catch up again
52:57
soon. But thanks everyone for coming
53:00
on and we'll talk to you. Thanks for listening to the AST
53:04
Space Mover Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and
53:08
you'd like to help support the podcast, please share it with
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others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and
53:14
review. To catch all the latest news
53:16
about AST Space Mobile, make sure to subscribe.
53:20
Thanks again and I'll see you next time.
53:26
We're doing something very, very big and acting with this
53:28
technology we can really affect billion lives.
53:31
AFT Space Mobile is the only company that has full technology
53:36
to deliver cellular broadband connectivity directly from
53:39
space. To do everyday smartphone.
53:42
People will just basically turn their phone and be simplest,
53:45
regardless of where you are. We don't want the user even to
53:48
know that it's connected by satellite.
53:51
Our role is to bring this into reality, always in partnership
53:55
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