Bei Swissquote gefunden. PARIS, July 26 (Reuters) - French satellite company Eutelsat and British rival OneWeb said they had signed an initial merger deal, which could help them challenge the likes of Elon Musk-owned SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon.com's Project Kuiper.
The transaction, which values OneWeb at $3.4 billion, would be structured as an exchange of OneWeb shares by its shareholders with new shares issued by Eutelsat, leaving the latter owning 100% of OneWeb.
A deal would combine the companies' resources in the race to build a constellation of low-orbit satellites. It is also potentially sensitive politically, as it would bring together Indian billionaire Sunil Bharti Mittal, along with France, China and Britain, as shareholders of the combined group.
Demand for satellite launches is expected to accelerate after recent sanctions sidelined the Russian space launch industry, and giant satellite constellations could offer a new channel to beam broadband Internet from space.
Eutelsat and OneWeb said their new, combined entity would have revenue of about 1.2 billion euros ($1.23 billion) and core EBITDA earnings around 0.7 billion euros by the 2022/2023 financial year, while revenue was forecast to grow at a low double-digit compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the next decade.
Eutelsat's Dominique DHinnin would be chairman of the combined entity. OneWeb's Sunil Bharti Mittal would also be co-chairman, while Eva Berneke would be CEO of the combined entity. ($1 = 0.9779 euros)
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Edmund Klamann) ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com;))
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