A British technology start-up which had promised to build the world’s first space plane is in last-ditch talks to secure new financing after two of its backers wrote down the value of their investment.

Reaction Engines, which was founded in 1989, is in detailed talks with the UAE-backed Strategic Development Fund (SDF), one of its existing shareholders, about a new injection of capital, according to two people familiar with the situation. The SDF led a £40mn funding round in January last year. 

The British start-up is also backed by several aerospace giants, including BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, as well as financial investors Artemis and Schroders.

Reaction has previously raised more than £150mn and grew its commercial revenues by more than 400 per cent last year. The company, however, warned earlier this year that it would need to raise additional financing. It has this weekend lined up PwC, the accountancy firm, to act as administrator if the funding talks collapse.

Sky News first reported that PwC had been put on standby. The accountancy firm, which has not yet been formally appointed, declined to comment on Saturday. Reaction also declined to comment. 

Other existing investors are monitoring the situation, said one of the people close to the talks. 

Artemis and Schroders both announced last week that they had significantly written down the value of their stakes in Reaction. Artemis cut the value of its 2.3 per cent holding by 75 per cent. Artemis Alpha Trust, the fund that manages the London-based fund manager’s stake, now values it at £1.2mn, compared with £6.4mn in April. 

Reaction has in recent years focused on developing a hybrid jet and rocket engine, known as Sabre. The innovative engine was originally planned to power Skylon, a space aircraft also designed by Reaction.

Key to Sabre’s development is Reaction’s groundbreaking pre-cooling technology which prevents engines from overheating and could lead to hypersonic space planes. The company is part of a UK-led military project aiming to make hypersonic flight a reality. At hypersonic speeds, the temperature generated inside a conventional gas turbine would start to melt components unless they were cooled in some way.

More recently the company has focused its attention on developing nearer-term aerospace and commercial applications for its pre-cooling technology. It signed an agreement with US industrial group Honeywell to collaborate on the development of thermal management technologies to help reduce aircraft emissions. 

Reaction is chaired by Philip Dunne, a former UK defence minister. It has been led by Mark Thomas, who was previously at Rolls-Royce. 

Trump avoided stating his voting intention or openly backing marijuana legalisation but stressed that responsible legislation is necessary to avoid public nuisances. He pointed to the need for laws that prevent marijuana use in public areas to keep public spaces free from the smell of marijuana, similar to the issues observed in other cities.
“The state Legislature needs to responsibly create laws that prohibit marijuana consumption in public spaces so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat-run Cities,” said Trump.
Concerns over inconsistent marijuana laws
He also highlighted the inconsistency of criminalising marijuana possession in Florida when it is legal in many other states. Trump emphasised that law enforcement resources and lives should not be wasted on arresting adults for possessing small amounts of marijuana.
“We do not need to ruin lives & waste Taxpayer Dollars arresting adults with personal amounts of it on them, and no one should grieve a loved one because they died from fentanyl-laced marijuana,” he added.
Impact on voter mobilisation and Republican division
Trump’s comments follow recent efforts by Democrats to attract younger voters in Florida, focusing on issues like abortion and marijuana legalisation. These issues have mobilised younger voters in other regions, as seen in Ohio, and Democrats hope for a similar impact in Florida.
Democrats are targeting the fall ballot measures, aiming to increase voter turnout and gain the support of younger voters, a group with which Trump has faced challenges.
Earlier in the year, the Department of Justice made a significant move toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. If this reclassification is approved, marijuana will be downgraded to a Schedule III drug.
Despite the trend toward normalisation and Trump’s comments, some Republicans remain opposed to legalising recreational marijuana. Sen Rick Scott has publicly stated his intention to vote against the measure. He cited personal family experience with addiction as a key reason for his opposition.
“My brother, who died at 67 in April, began smoking marijuana as a teenager and led a life of addiction,” Scott said.

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

The US oil industry and Republicans are demanding Kamala Harris clarify her energy and climate policy, as the Democratic candidate tries to please her progressive base without alienating voters in shale areas like Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.

On Thursday, the vice-president said she no longer supported a ban on fracking, the technology that unleashed the shale revolution. But Harris’s reversal has not quelled attacks from Donald Trump or US executives that she would damage the country’s oil and gas sector.

The heads of the US’s two biggest oil lobby groups said the Democratic candidate must also say whether she would keep or end a pause on federal approvals for new liquefied natural gas plants, and whether she supported curbs on drilling imposed by the Biden administration.

“Based on what we know of her past positions, the bills that she has sponsored, and her past statements she’s taken a pretty aggressively anti-energy and anti-oil and gas industry stand,” said Anne Bradbury, head of the American Exploration and Production Council.

“These are significant and major policy questions that impact every American family and business, and which voters deserve to understand better when making their choice in November,” she said.

Mike Sommers, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, Big Oil’s most powerful lobby group, said Harris should say whether she would stick with Biden administration policies that had unleashed “a regulatory onslaught the likes of which this industry has never seen”.

Trump, the Republican candidate, has accused Harris of plotting a “war on American energy” and has repeatedly blamed her and President Joe Biden for high fuel costs in recent years.

On Thursday, he vowed to scrap Biden administration policies that “distort energy markets”. The former president has called climate change a hoax and his advisers have said he would gut Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The debate over Harris’s energy policy comes as she and Trump court blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania, a huge shale gas producer that employs 72,000 workers — a potentially decisive voting group in a state Biden won narrowly in 2020.

Harris said in 2019 that she supported a fracking ban but told CNN on Thursday she had ditched that position and the US could have “a thriving clean energy economy without banning fracking”.

US oil and gas production has reached a record high under Biden, even as clean energy capacity has expanded rapidly.

But gas executives in particular have been alarmed at a federal pause on building new LNG export plants, which supply customers from Europe to Asia, saying the policy will stymie further US shale output.

Toby Rice, chief executive of Pennsylvania-based EQT, the US’s largest natural gas producer, said Harris should lift the restrictions, which he argued would compromise energy security.

“Ignoring her anti-fracking statement four years ago for a second, can we talk about the recent LNG Pause that was put in place this year?”, he said. “This is a policy that has received massive criticism from all sides — our allies, industry and environmental champions . . . a step backwards for climate and American energy security.”

While Biden put climate at the centre of his and Harris’s 2020 White House campaign, Harris has been largely silent, and made only a passing reference to climate change in her speech at the Democratic convention.

“It looks like the Harris campaign has concluded that it’s safer to avoid antagonising producers or climate activists by skirting these issues entirely,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners.

Climate-focused voters are less vexed than energy executives by the lack of explicit policy from Harris.

“Let’s be clear: the most important climate policy right now is defeating Donald Trump in November,” said Cassidy DiPaola of Fossil Free Media, a non-profit organisation. “All the wonky policy details in the world won’t matter if climate deniers control the White House.”

Last week the political arms of the League of Conservation Voters, Climate Power and the Environmental Defense Fund unveiled a $55mn advertising campaign backing Harris in swing states, focused on economic rather than climate issues.

In contrast, Trump has courted oil bosses who are backing his pledge to slash regulation and scrap clean energy subsidies. His campaign received nearly $14mn from the industry in June, according to OpenSecrets, almost double his oil haul in May.

Additional reporting by Sam Learner