AST & Science to close SPAC offer, commence buying and selling on Nasdaq future week

Satellite-to-smartphone broadband enterprise AST & Science expects to shut its SPAC merger future week, the enterprise claimed on Thursday. Its stock will trade on the Nasdaq.

Last yr, the company declared strategies to merge with specific function acquisition company New Providence, which trades underneath ticker NPA.

Stockholders voted on Thursday to approve the transaction, with the closing predicted “on or about April 6,” or subsequent Tuesday. The put together corporation of AST & Science and New Providence will be recognized as AST Place Cell, and will trade under the ticker ASTS.

New Providence’s stock slipped 2.4% in trading on Thursday to close at $11.39 a share.

AST SpaceMobile, based mostly in Midland, Texas, is creating a community of satellites, also recognized as a constellation, that is designed to provide broadband from house instantly to customer smartphones. Existing satellite networks have to have extra actual physical devices to connect to the service, this kind of as Iridium’s mobile satellite telephones or SpaceX’s Starlink user terminals.

The company, which elevated about $120 million before the SPAC deal, expects to incorporate about $462 million in full proceeds from the merger. The new cash will fund the company’s enhancement of its community, with AST setting up to start its upcoming demonstration satellite BlueWalker 3 afterwards this yr.

AST’s predicted close would arrive as the to start with of a current sequence of space SPAC’s to comprehensive its merger. Which include AST, 7 area providers have introduced bargains with SPAC’s in the earlier 6 months.