Shares in microwave technology firm Filtronics soared as much as 52 per cent on Wednesday morning after it unveiled a new long-term deal with Spacex’s Starlink platform that could make Elon Musk’s company a major shareholder.
AIM-listed Filtronic’s stock price reached its highest level in a decade at 50.48p in early trading.
Filtronic, a supplier of products to the aerospace, defence, space and telecoms infrastructure sectors, already supplies E-band solid state power amplifiers (SSPA) to Starlink, which provides internet services via low-earth orbit satellites.
The firm said this morning that it would also develop and supply similar products at other frequency bands for Starlink under a new strategic partnership and commercial agreement.
As part of the deal, Spacex will receive 21.7m warrants from Filtronic, which will enable the US giant to subscribe for up to 10 per cent of the Leeds-based company’s shares.
Filtronic said the new partnership was executed with an initial purchase order of $19.7m (£15.8m) to supply E-band SSPA modules, scheduled for delivery in the 2025 fiscal year.
In a separate stock market update on Wednesday, Filtronic said it now expected its fiscal 2025 results to surpass market estimates after closing “several significant contracts with new customers” in the first half of fiscal 2024.
Chief executive Richard Gibbs said: “This milestone development in our Spacex partnership underlines our core value proposition of high-quality engineering and operational excellence. It also provides Filtronic with the opportunity to scale manufacturing, build capability and execute our technology roadmap.”
Mike Nicolls, Spacex’s vice president of Starlink engineering, added: “[Filtronic’s] strong engineering teams have taken ownership of their production process to meet our needs, taking their designs from wafer to functional unit, and are delivering quality parts in E-band which will enable the Starlink network to continue to grow and connect millions of more people around the world with high-speed, low-latency broadband internet.”