Thank you for standing by. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Astra Strategic Update Call. Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome Astra's Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. Chris Kemp. Mr. Kemp, please go ahead. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for this conference call to discuss recent events. You may have seen a number of filings and press releases after market on Friday, and we thought it would be helpful to conduct a short call to discuss our integrated strategy around financing, reallocations, and reductions in our workforce, and other expense reductions and strategic optimizations. Unfortunately, we're very close to earnings and are limited in the topics that we can cover, so we'll not be able to take any questions today. We look forward to discussing these updates and other matters with you at our earnings call, scheduled for August 14, 2023, which is next week. I encourage you to review our Form 8-K filed on August 4th, 2023, with the SEC for the full disclosure, including the forward-looking statements, disclaimer, and a reconciliation of non-GAAP metrics to the most comparable GAAP measure. Friday, we announced a strategic reallocation of a portion of our workforce from our Launch Services organization to the Astra Spacecraft Engines business. We are intensely focused on delivering on our commitments to our customers, which includes ensuring we have sufficient resources and an adequate financial runway to do so. To address this, we reallocated approximately 50 engineering and manufacturing personnel from Launch Services to Space Products. Some of these are permanent reassignments and some are temporary assignments to support specific customer programs or to increase production and test capacity through the end of the year. In addition to this reallocation, we have looked for opportunities to optimize our organization and reduce expenses. As a result, we have reduced our overall workforce by approximately 25% since the beginning of this quarter, including Friday's announcement of a reduction of approximately 70 employees. I want to take a moment and personally thank every one of the employees affected by Friday's announcement. I greatly appreciate the contributions all of our employees have made, and we've done our best to treat everyone impacted with utmost care and respect during this transition. The employees affected by Friday's announcement primarily supported the company's Launch Services, SG&A, and Shared Services functions. These reductions were painful but necessary step to reduce operating expenses, which, when combined with ongoing reductions in CapEx and other reductions in OpEx, are expected to result in a substantial reduction to our cash burn over the next few quarters. This restructuring is intended to focus the company's resources on serving our Space Products customers and delivering on spacecraft engine commitments in the near term. We are excited about the Astra Spacecraft Engines business and are committed to resourcing it for growth and success. Some of you may be wondering what this means for launch. We continue to be focused on the development of Rocket 4 and servicing our existing launch contracts. That being said, the reduction and reallocation of Launch Services resources is expected to delay the timing of our test launches and paid commercial launches. We don't have the precise impact of these changes as of yet, but we'll be keeping you updated as we do. We also provided some preliminary estimates of certain unaudited financial results for the Q2 of 2023. We did this to facilitate discussions we have had with potential investors and lenders. I want to emphasize that this data is preliminary and unaudited, based on our estimates and subject to further internal review by management and compilation of actual results. Our independent registered public accounting firm has not audited, reviewed, compiled, or performed any procedures with respect to the preliminary financial data we've released. With those caveats, for the three months ended June 30, 2023, we expect revenues of between $500,000 to $1 million, GAAP net loss to be between $13 million and $15 million, adjusted EBITDA loss to be between $32.1 million and $34.1 million, basic shares outstanding to be between $271 million and $273 million shares, capital expenditures to be between $2.9 million and $3.9 million, and cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities to be between $26 million and $26.5 million. The preliminary estimates provided for adjusted EBITDA loss, basic shares outstanding, and capital expenditures are in line with the original guidance provided at our Q1 2023 earnings call on May 15, 2023. The preliminary estimate of cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities guidance is lower than the range initially provided on our May 15th earnings call, primarily for two reasons. One is delays in collecting on government receivables of approximately $2.9 million, Second, a delay in the company's receipt of cash proceeds from the Employee Retention Tax Credit of approximately $2.1 million. Had these two items been collected in the quarter, we believe, based on our current views, that Astra's cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities would have been within the guidance provided on that earnings call. We also announced a very positive litigation update. On August 2, 2023, the court in our securities class action lawsuit issued an order granting our motion to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint. Although the plaintiffs have a period of 21 days to file an amended complaint, we are pleased with the court's ruling and happy to share this positive development with our stockholders. The other part of the equation is financing. As we said on our last earnings call, the company remains focused on thoughtfully identifying opportunities to raise capital. Given the strength of Astra Spacecraft Engines, the company has engaged PJT Partners, a global advisory-focused investment bank, to act as the company's financial advisor in connection with future financing activities. To explore potential strategic investments in Astra Spacecraft Engines for the purpose of strengthening Astra's balance sheet. Obviously, the outcome of any such process is uncertain, and the structure of any potential investment is subject to ongoing due diligence and other factors. We will provide future updates on any financing activities as and when appropriate. Friday, we were very pleased to announce the closing of a financing transaction. Astra has entered into a securities purchase agreement with an institutional investor to purchase in a registered direct offering, $12.5 million aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes and warrants to purchase up to 22.5 million shares of our company stock for an exercise price of $0.45 per share, a premium over Friday's closing price. Net proceeds after deducting the placement agent fees and other expenses are approximately $10.8 million. In addition, and as described in more detail in our securities filings and in the transaction documents themselves, after the filing of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, in or around March of 2024, and then upon the satisfaction of certain conditions, Astra may issue and sell the same investor an additional $7.5 million in senior secured notes and warrants to purchase the aggregate number of shares in Astra common stock equal to 65% of the aggregate principal amount of these notes issued, divided by the market stock price, as defined in the purchase agreement. Astra's right to issue and sell additional shares expires on August 4, 2024. The notes issued and sold bear an interest of 9% per annum and will mature on November 1, 2024, and are secured by a first priority security interest in the assets of the company and its subsidiaries. As additional security for the repayment of the notes, we are required to maintain a cash balance of $5.0 million in a restricted account. We may not access the $5 million in funds while the notes are outstanding. We are also required to maintain an approved at-the-market equity program and/or equity line that at all times shall have available an unused capacity to generate at least $20 million of gross proceeds to us. The restriction will limit our ability to use the full capacity of the sales agreement we entered into and announced on June 10, 2023, under which we could, from time to time, sell in an at-the-market offering up to 65 million shares of our Class A common stock. The offering was made pursuant to the company's shelf registration statement on Form S-3 and a prospectus supplement filed on August 4, 2023. I encourage you to carefully review the prospectus supplement we filed, which contains a summary of the material terms. The transaction agreements were also filed, and we encourage you to review those as well. In conclusion, Astra is pursuing a strategy of supporting the growth of our existing spacecraft engine business while continuing to make progress on launch. We are aggressively reducing expenses and optimizing our organizational structure. We've secured financing and are continuing to explore strategic opportunities where it makes sense. On behalf of the management team, I want to thank you for your attendance today, for your continued support of Astra, and we look forward to speaking with you at our earnings call on August 14th, 2023. Well, you may now disconnect.
Loading workspace