The window for government contractors, especially those in defense and space technology, to go public is open again as several listings over the past 12 months show and SpaceX’s own offering this year will illustrate.

Dave Khalsa, head of mid-cap defense and government technology investment banking at J.P. Morgan, works on transactions of many different types and observes all of them to help companies in the market figure it all out.

In starting out this episode, Dave explains what all companies can take away from the handful of initial public offerings over the past 12 months and SpaceX’s listing. This is true of whether they plan to go down the IPO path or not.

The rest of the conversation between Dave and our Ross Wilkers focuses on how government priorities shape merger-and-acquisition activities by companies under different ownership models, including private equity and venture capital.

Public offerings put GovCon in a new spotlight as SpaceX's listing looms

HawkEye 360's public offering hauls in $416M

AEVEX fetches $320M in IPO proceeds

Firefly captures $868M in IPO proceeds

York Space Systems raises $629M in public offering

Merlin Labs’ public offering collects $200M to build an AI autopilot for any aircraft

L3Harris to spin off its rocket motor business with the Pentagon as an anchor investor

AeroVironment's tech and business blueprints with BlueHalo now in the fold

Veritas Capital's ninth fund grows to $15.3B

OceanSound Partners hauls in $3.4B for third fund

Arlington Capital fetches $6B for its seventh fund

Government equity investments open a new frontier for industry

Venture investing is part of the M&A conversation too

Anduril hauls in $5B for Series H round

Shield AI closes $1.5B Series G round and moves on acquisition

Saronic wraps up $600M Series C round

Sierra Space and Vast detail their Series C investment rounds