Reaction Engines Goes Into Administration

​​Reaction Engines, a company working on a hybrid rocket engine that will allow for hypersonic flying, submitted a notice of intention to appoint administrators.
The administration will be managed by PwC restructuring specialists.

The company was dubbed as being able to launch the “next Concorde” but now 173 of the 208 staff have been made redundant.

In a statement PwC said [Reaction Engines] had been “pursuing opportunities to raise further funds, but unfortunately, these attempts were unsuccessful”.

Sarah O’Toole, joint administrator and partner at PwC, said: “It’s with great sadness that a pioneering company with a 35-year history of spearheading aerospace innovation has unfortunately been unable to raise the funding required to continue operations.”

The Oxfordshire business had been negotiating for a financial lifeline with its shareholders, notably the Strategic Development Fund of the United Arab Emirates.

It was hoped that Sabre, the hybrid jet and rocket engine being developed by Reaction Engines, could have allowed hypersonic spacecraft to travel from Britain to Australia in as little as four hours.

Reaction’s Sabre technology, short for Synergetic Air Breathing Rocket Engine, was first developed in 1989.

The company has received several government subsidies in addition to investments from BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce. But it also consumed tens of millions of pounds annually.

Last year, the business raised £40 million from investors, including those in the United Arab Emirates, increasing its total capital to almost £150 million.

The most recent financial statements show that Reaction’s yearly losses in 2022 increased from £18.4 million to £25.7 million, while its sales decreased from £7.2 million to £4.7 million.