Deutsche Summit attracts investors and companies

A view from the Deutsche Bank Center in New York City on November 15, 2023.

Michael Sheetz | CNBC

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Yesterday, Deutsche Bank held its Space Summit here in New York City. On the sidelines, CNBC filmed interviews with more than a half-dozen top executives from Rocket Lab to Mynaric and more.

There’s a lot of great content to come from these interviews in the future, but for now here are some takeaways from my final conversation for the day. We interviewed Deutsche Investment Banking Managing Director Vaibhav Lohia, Head of Space at the bank, who shared his insights from the meetings and panel discussions that took place throughout the day.

“I think the feeling — which has been reflected not only in the conversations I’ve had here, but also in the public investment that I’ve seen coming into the space sector in the last two years or so — is one of caution. This is one of the things that is choosing companies that are in The foundation is the top of its sub-sectors. “Investors want to invest in space, but investors realize that this is a long investment cycle.”

Overall, Lohia noted, the space sector is “more rational” than the bubble times of two or three years ago. He hopes the relative decline represents a “healthier approach to investing” rather than an overcorrection of risk aversion.

Lohia said the space sector is different from other fast-growing U.S. industries, such as electric vehicles, clean energy or financial technology.

“All these sectors have the high growth that we see in the macro economy today, but they are essentially replacement technologies,” Lohia said. “When you look at the space sector, there’s part of it that’s driving efficiencies in the way we do things on Earth…but in addition to that, there’s this whole aspect of exploration, which is basically a new frontier.”

2023 has been a tough year for space stocks, with only a few positive results so far. Each de-SPAC share is trading below its initial price.

But Lohia pointed to the attendance at the Deutsche Space Summit as representative of continued investor enthusiasm for the sector. The roughly 230 attendees in New York on Wednesday were double what the bank initially expected. He said that about half of the attendees at the summit were investors.

There is no doubt that the liquidity crunch will reach far beyond the space sector. But the space industry, at least as measured by the Deutsche summit, continues to attract investors to the negotiating table.

Programming Note: Space investment will cease next week for the Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned for the next release on November 30th.