Analysts at investment company B. Riley have upped their share price guidance for would–be satellite 5G cellular operator AST SpaceMobile to $36 (from $26). The rating is the latest in a series of banks and investment houses which have boosted their advice to clients regarding AST.

B. Riley held a symposium last week where AST’s president and chief strategy officer Scott Wisniewski and CFO Andrew Johnson discussing the company’s progress toward inaugural commercial service, expected roughly three months following deployment of the first five Block 1 BlueBird (BB) satellites, which remain on track to launch in early September, with planning and production of the next 17 Block 2 BBs underway.

“Following the discussion, we adjust our model, now projecting ASTS to exit Q3 24 with just shy of $400 million in cash, as well as $145million from the forced conversion of de–SPAC warrants after AST announced on August 28th it will redeem any outstanding warrants on September 27th, we believe enabling accelerated constellation deployment and time to revenue,” the investment house added.

“Furthermore, we continue to believe AST has various additional sources of capital available to fund the deployment of its SpaceMobile constellation. Possible examples include sovereign funding from the US Ex–Im Bank and/or others as well as a repeatable pre–payment template for government and MNO customers wishing to secure access to the network, not to mention potential investment from the US.

First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet), which held aboard meeting on August 21st where the agency discussed planned satellite to device investment in its GFY25 (Sep) budget,which includes $534 million allocated to fund network enhancements to expand coverage,” the report continued. “As a result, we increase our FY25e revenue and EBITDA from $130 million/$(37 million) to $150 million/$(19 million), and we look to publish FY26 estimates after Block 1 BBs are in orbit. We note that investors should beware ofpotential headline risk given that at least one other analyst has a $68 million revenue estimate for Q3 24 and a $1.3billion revenue estimate for FY25 (vs. our $1 million and $150 million estimates, respectively),” the report cautioned investors.

“At the same time, we increase our PT from $26 to $36, representing an $11.4 billion Enterprise Value at the end of FY25, assuming in the money notes convert to common, for AST SpaceMobile – a company that we believe remains the clear leader in the race to enable true direct–to–device (D2D) broadband connectivity,“ stated B. Riley.

Other posts by Chris Forrester:

1. India stalls again on satellite licensing
2. Bank raises AST SpaceMobile target
3. AST SpaceMobile reaches $10bn market cap
4. China uses Galactic Energy ship to launch satellites
5. Battle royale for DTC over US
6. Deutsche Bank stays negative on Eutelsat
7. India would-be sat-operators increasingly upset
8. Israel wants its own satellite constellation
9. Will Starlink beat AST for direct-to-cellular?

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Tags: AST SpaceMobile