Luxembourg Lost $13.7 Million on Planetary Resources Investment
Luxembourg Economy Minister Etienne Schneider has disclosed to Parliament that the nation lost €12 million ($13.7 million) investing in the asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, the Luxembourg Times reports.
In October, Luxembourg sold its stake in the company, which was acquired by the block chain management firm ConsenSYS.
The SNCI set up the SAAM Luxembourg, a company created with €13.75 million [$15.7 million], of which €12 million [$13.7 million] was directly invested in Planetary Resources for the 10% stake in its shares.
“This decision to sell results, among other things, from an analysis of the particular American legal context and prudent management which intends to limit the potential exposures of SAAM Luxembourg, or even of SNCI as sole shareholder of SAAM Luxembourg,” Schneider explained.
“The realised capital loss corresponds roughly to the value adjustment (of 100% of the sums invested in Planetary Resources) in the accounts in SAAM Luxembourg’s 2017 annual results,” he added.
10 responses to “Luxembourg Lost $13.7 Million on Planetary Resources Investment”
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Risk vs reward… A small investment for the potential billion$ in space rocks. Maybe Luxembourg should wait for the BFR to be flying.
My sense is asteroid mining is a bit premature. To survive, Planetary Resources & DSI had to pivot to projects that could advance the technology while bringing in sufficient revenues to pay the bills and fund R&D. DSI seems to have managed that so far. Planetary Resources kept pivoting until it ended up in block chain.
Agreed. Kinda similar to a market for BFR specific payloads being premature, so funding must come from elsewhere. 🙂 Hopefully, the market matures over the next 10 years enough to where some type of space based mining activity makes business sense, whether it is for refueling in space; space based manufacturing; or actually bringing it back down to earth for terrestrial use.
There are pathways that it could follow to that point, but all begin on the Moon due to its proximity which facilitates teleopetated mining systems. Asteroids are a great future resource, but lunar industrialization is a necessary prerequisite to realizing their potential as a resource.
If your markets do not start on Earth it won’t work. Sure there are riches in asteroids, but lunar mining will come first, and you need to make sure you focus on sliding down the demand curve to make it viable.
Small change compared to what NM and the investors in VG have lost buying into other Peter Diamandis’ ventures. And DSI was never more than a “me too” venture by Rick Tumlinson. Both are classics examples of vision not being a substitute for strategy.
Eh, someone made a small fortune in space ?
Don’t feel too bad, Luxembourg is very wealthy….tiny but loaded.
Oh we thought that was Andorra https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Hey now, Andorra is lovely…sure it’s basically the top of mountain but still.