Maxar earnings miss Wall Street expectations due to COVID-related delays

WESTMINSTER — Satellite maker Maxar Technologies Inc. (NYSE: MAXR) missed revenue expectations in the first quarter of the year Monday afternoon after finding a $32 million satellite design error and temporarily shuttering plants to slow the spread of the coronavirus in California.

The Westminster-based Maxar reported revenues of $381 million and a loss of 80 cents per share for the first quarter of the year, missing consensus analyst estimates compiled by finance site Seeking Alpha by $34 million and 38 cents, respectively.

The company posted a net loss of $48 million.

In a statement, CEO Dan Jablonsky said most of the quarter was spent on reducing the company’s debt load, including by spinning off its Canadian arm to a Toronto private equity firm for $729 million.

Jablonsky also said the company secured a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars for a commercial communication satellite array, which brings the company’s space infrastructure awarded this year to more than $700 million.

The exact size of that new contract was not disclosed.

However, the company faced some financial strife due to the COVID-19 epidemic. Some of its contract delivery dates were delayed after it closed down its San Jose and Palo Alto plants due to California’s stay-at-home order. 

CFO Biggs Porter also said in a statement that the company discovered a design flaw in its commercial satellite program in late April, which cost an additional $32 million to the cost of completing the contract.

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