Erik Sallee, the CFO of Intuitive Machines (‘LUNR’), has resigned for personal reasons. Steven Vontur, the current Controller, will serve as the interim CFO while the company conducts a search for a permanent CFO.
LUNR is based in Clear Lake, near NASA and is developing products for space exploration. The company was taken public by a SPAC in February 2023.
Mr. Sallee is based in California and the company said he was pursuing other business opportunities in that state. Before joining IM, he was the Corporate Controller for Blue Origin. Prior to that he worked for Raytheon.
The company’s first launch is scheduled for mid-February with the spacecraft landing on the moon about a week after launch. A competing private company, Astrobotic, is set to make its first launch on January 8. Its craft takes a more indirect route to the moon, so both may land around the same time. Both missions are related to NASA’s Artemis program, which intends to put astronauts back on the moon.
LUNR’s stock has a wild ride since going public. It began trading at $10, rose to $136 later that month before crashing back down to $12 in March 2023, despite no news from the company. The stock currently trades at $2.53.
Revenues miss projections
In its investor presentation as part of going public, the company projected its revenue would be $291 million in 2023 and $759 million in 2024. In its latest quarterly report, revenues for the nine months to September 2023 were $49 million. All three of its main contracts were loss-making, with total cost of sales of $71 million for the same period.
At the end of September 2023, the company had backlog of $135 million. That doesn’t include anything from NASA OMES 3 space orbital program. The contract, which began in late 2023, is projected to be worth $719 million over five years and has been awarded to the joint venture LUNR has with KBR.
SEC filing 8-K – Intuitive Machines CFO