Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc. is no more.
The Long Beach aerospace company that declared bankruptcy in April sold off its real estate, machinery and airplane in an auction that netted it $36 million.
A pair of Los Angeles County companies – Rocket Lab USA Inc. in Long Beach and Launcher Inc. in Hawthorne – were two of the successful bidders for assets from the company founded by billionaire Sir Richard Branson. Another company, Stratolaunch LLC in Mojave, was the third company to bid successfully on the assets.
In a statement from May 23, the day of the auction, Virgin Orbit said that it would “sell its assets to four winning bidders and will cease operations.”
Also winning a bid to buy office equipment from a location in Long Beach was Inliper Acquisition LLC, a liquidation company in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. The company paid $650,000 for the equipment it purchased.
Rocket Lab, which is building rockets in Long Beach, paid $16.1 million to take on Virgin Orbit’s lease at its headquarters and manufacturing facility at 4022 E Conant St. in the coastal city, along with machinery and equipment located inside the factory.
Stratolaunch, a company that built the largest aircraft in the world known as the Roc, bought the modified 747 jet known as Cosmic Girl for $17 million. It was used by Virgin Orbit to launch satellites into space.
Zachary Krevor, chief executive of Stratolaunch, called the addition of the 747 a transformational milestone for the company.
“With Roc remaining as our mainstay aircraft, an additional 747 brings expanded capabilities and flexibility to our platform,” Krevor said in a statement. “We will be able to increase both our flight test capacity and reach to become an even stronger partner to global customers.”
Launcher Inc. was acquired in February by Vast, a company developing artificial gravity space stations also based in Long Beach. It paid $2.7 million for machinery and equipment located at Virgin Orbit’s facility in Mojave.
