This sale is merely a group of Canadian funds that had an ownership stake in Inmarsat when it was private company.
Prior to going private in 2021, Inmarsat was a públic company traded on stock exchanges.
By going private, these funds had no way of liquidating their position
In June 2023 at the close of the Viasat Inmarsat merger, 14 months ago, these same funds received cash AND those 11.2 millon shares.
There is a “lockup” period of one year where they could not sell their shares. See SEC Rule 144.
14 months later (yesterday) those funds could finally liquidate (waited for the quarterly earnings call to complete too) and get the rest of the proceeds from the merger sale.
These guys were going to sell their shares after one year whether the price was $20 or $200. They already made their money through the cash consideration and were then waiting to get that second piece of 11.2 million shares placed in their brokerage accounts. A teachers pension fund has no business holding a large stake in Space Stocks! Their goal is to create low risk low rate returns in the most boring manner possible to pay retired teachers in their 60s 70s and 80s.
Now, they sold their shares between $20 and $20.50 per share to other institutions whose risk profile is more appropriate. The sky is not falling!