Iridium shareholders approve Rocket Lab's $8 billion takeover of the satellite phone company

Iridium Communications stockholders voted on 24 September 2026 to sell the company to Rocket Lab. Holders of 85,862,105 shares voted in favour, about 99.6 per cent of the votes cast and 81.0 per cent of Iridium’s shares outstanding. Each Iridium share is to become $27.00 in cash plus Rocket Lab stock, a notional $54.00, in a deal the two companies valued at about $8.0 billion including Iridium’s debt when they announced it on 29 June 2026.

Rocket Lab, which flew its 97th Electron rocket at 00:39 UTC on 26 September, gets a network of 66 working satellites and the L-band radio spectrum they use, and with them a business selling satellite communications to ships, aircraft, armed forces and remote workers. The companies expect to close in mid-2027, once the US Federal Communications Commission and regulators abroad have approved it.

How did the vote go?

Both proposals at Iridium’s special meeting on 24 September 2026 passed, according to the company’s 8-K filing that day. The merger needed a majority of all outstanding shares, and the votes in favour came to 81.0 per cent of the 105,981,552 shares on the register at the 21 August record date. A separate, advisory vote on payments to Iridium’s top executives if the deal closes drew 10.9 million votes against.

“Today’s vote is an important milestone in bringing together Rocket Lab and Iridium to create a next generation space powerhouse,” Sir Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and chief executive, said in the joint release.

What does each Iridium share get?

Each Iridium share gets $27.00 in cash and Rocket Lab stock meant to be worth another $27.00, under the merger agreement signed on 28 June 2026. The number of Rocket Lab shares depends on Rocket Lab’s volume-weighted average price over the ten trading days ending two full trading days before closing, and a collar sets the limits, according to Iridium’s 8-K of 29 June.

The band runs 25 per cent either side of Rocket Lab’s average price in the five trading days to 26 June 2026. Rocket Lab agreed to it that day, after Iridium’s board asked for “more downside protection”, according to the proxy statement sent to stockholders from 26 August.

Rocket Lab’s share price sets the stock half

Rocket Lab’s shares closed below the collar’s $67.50 floor on 24 of the 63 trading days from 29 June to 25 September 2026, according to Nasdaq’s price history. Below the floor, each Iridium share gets a fixed 0.4000 Rocket Lab shares, so the stock half shrinks with the price. The lowest close in that stretch was $58.60 on 29 July. Only the ten-day average just before closing sets the ratio; the swings since June show how far the value can move.

Rocket Lab closed at $73.61 on vote day, back inside the band. Iridium closed at $48.89 the same day, $5.11 below the notional $54.00.

How the offer rose from $42.50 to $54.00

Rocket Lab opened at $42.50 a share, all in stock, on 15 April 2026 and reached $54.00, half in cash, on 23 June, according to the proxy statement. Its first offer came the day after Amazon announced it was buying Globalstar, another satellite operator. A rival the proxy calls Party A bid $41.00 to $45.00 in cash on 2 June.

The final price was 89 per cent above Iridium’s share price of $28.52 on 1 April 2026, the day before reports of the Amazon deal lifted the shares. Iridium’s board first discussed a possible deal in September 2025, after SpaceX agreed to buy spectrum licences from EchoStar. On announcement day, 29 June, Iridium closed at $54.59, up 25 per cent, and Rocket Lab rose 16 per cent to $98.01.

What Rocket Lab is buying

Rocket Lab is buying 66 operational satellites plus 14 in-orbit spares, a network that covers the whole Earth from pole to pole, according to the companies’ investor presentation. The satellites fly about 780 kilometres up, each cross-linked to four others, and talk to users on L-band frequencies that Iridium says hold up in bad weather, according to Iridium’s network page. The first went up in 1997, and the whole constellation was replaced by 2019.

A large share of Iridium’s revenue comes from US government contracts. Under the Enhanced Mobile Satellite Services contract with the US Space Force, signed in September 2019, the government pays a fixed $110.5 million a year for unlimited airtime. The contract expires in September 2026, the government can extend it by six months, and Iridium expects to sign a new one by March 2027, according to its second-quarter report.

Both companies named direct-to-device service as a growth area in June. Iridium NTN Direct links standard NB-IoT devices straight to Iridium’s satellites; it carried a voice message from a Toyota car in a test with Deutsche Telekom IoT, and Iridium expects commercial service in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Which approvals are still needed?

The Federal Communications Commission still has to consent to moving Iridium’s licences to Rocket Lab, and regulators in up to eight other countries have to sign off, according to the proxy statement. The US antitrust waiting period expired at 11:59 pm Eastern time on 12 August 2026, Rocket Lab said the next day.

The merger agreement gives the companies until 28 June 2027 to close, with two three-month extensions to 28 December 2027. Three stockholder lawsuits filed in New York state court seek fuller disclosure about the deal; Iridium, which calls the claims without merit, added disclosures on 18 September 2026.

Rocket Lab had the cash in hand before the vote

Rocket Lab said on 15 September 2026, nine days before the vote, that the cash half of the deal was fully funded. It sold 29.3 million new shares through an at-the-market offering for about $1.944 billion before costs, and Iridium’s lenders agreed to keep its $1.775 billion term loan in place after the takeover, backed by a guarantee from Rocket Lab USA, according to Rocket Lab’s financing release.

With both in hand, Rocket Lab cancelled the $3.6 billion bridge loan that Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo had committed on 28 June. That leaves the regulators: the FCC, where the licence applications went in on 10 August 2026, and the approvals abroad, ahead of a close the companies expect in mid-2027.