By Al Root

There is a new aerospace and defense company -- with an emphasis on space -- for investors to follow.

Shares of Applied Aerospace & Defense will begin trading Wednesday under the symbol "AADX."

The company said Tuesday it had priced its initial public offering at $20 a share, raising about $750 million, if underwriters exercise their option for additional shares.

The IPO valued the company at about $3.5 billion, or about six times 2025 sales of $604 million. Applied wasn't profitable in 2025. It reported a first-quarter operating loss of $57 million.

There is growth, though. First-quarter sales rose almost 40% year over year.

Applied Aerospace builds hardware for space launch, including propellant tanks. It also makes components for aircraft that don't go into orbit, including drones, as well as parts for solid rocket motors, which power missiles.

Space, missiles, and drones: That list checks off a lot of themes for investors these days. Space stocks have been on fire in the month leading up to the SpaceX IPO. Elon Musk's rocket company essentially created the modern space economy and should be valued at about $1.8 trillion when its record-setting IPO wraps up this coming week. Coming into Wednesday trading, Rocket Lab stock was up more than 55% over the past month.

Drones have also been on investors' minds since fighting broke out in Iran. The U.S. military has scrambled for counter-drone solutions that don't require firing a million-dollar missile at a $10,000 drone.

The world will use more drones in the future, and there will be many more space launches. Both are good things for Applied's business.

The company is based in Huntsville, Alabama, and is led by James "Trip" Ferguson. Before taking the reins at Applied, Ferguson led the Space, Cyber, and Directed Energy (think lasers) business at AeroVironment.

The new company was built through a series of combinations that brought together different space and defense businesses under one roof.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

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June 03, 2026 11:51 ET (15:51 GMT)

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