This merger would allow the French operator to have a constellation of satellites capable of competing with the American Starlink projects of Elon Musk or Kuiper by Jeff Bezos.
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New step in the race to broadcast broadband Internet all over the planet from space. Monday, July 25, the French satellite operator, Eutelsat, announced that he had initiated discussions for the acquisition of the British Oneweb, of which he is the second shareholder behind the Indian group Bharti Global. If the operation materializes, it will give birth to a pan -European champion in the telecommunications constellations in low orbit, located between 550 and 1,200 kilometers of the earth, capable of competing with the American projects Starlink of the founder of SpaceX Elon Musk or Kuiper by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
Negotiated for a few months under the name of code Erika (E for Eutelsat), this project is to merge the two parity companies by exchange of shares, in order to respect the shareholder’s balance of the two entities, Eutelsat having for first shareholder The BPIFRANCE Public Investment Bank up to 20 %, and Oneweb having its capital distributed between BARTI GLOBAL (30 %), Eutelsat (23 %), the British government (17.6 %), the Japanese Softbank (17, 6 %) and Korean Hanwa (8.8 %). As for valuation, it requires adaptations to reach parity. If Oneweb is estimated at 3.4 billion euros, Eutelsat is worth nearly 2.4 billion, but the payment of an exceptional dividend should make it possible to fill the gap.
Only certainty, the new entity, so -called “New Erika”, resulting from this merger will keep its seat in France and management will remain the same as the current of Eutelsat, with the presidency of Dominique Hinnin, and at the general management, Eva Berneke. Bpifrance will have a headquarters on the Board of Directors and the British government will have a veto right on Oneweb’s activities.
a very closed club
This new group strengthens its presence in a very closed club, due to the high entry cost between 5 and 10 billion dollars (4.9 and 9.8 billion euros). To date, in addition to OneWeb, there are only four other projects on the western side, the Chinese being also active: the 42,000 Starlink satellites of Elon Musk, the future Kuiper network of Jeff Bezos, Lightspeed of the Canadian Tales and since the end From 2021, Boeing.
But Oneweb is the first to deploy with Starlink, and the only one who, with its 648 satellites, will have global coverage of the planet at the end of 2022. Besides, since December 2021, the operator has been offering services In areas beyond the 50
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