Eutelsat-OneWeb stock plummets
Despite its merger with Eutelsat in 2023, the stock value of the combined Eutelsat-OneWeb satellite company has plummeted in the past year, more than halving the value of the OneWeb portion that was saved from bankruptcy by both the government of the United Kingdom and investors from India in 2020.
The collapse means the UK’s investment is worth €133m (£110m), representing a near £300m paper loss for the taxpayer. … However, while the all-share deal implied a value of €12 per share, Eutelsat’s stock has since imploded. In the past 12 months, it has halved and is trading at record lows of €2.58.
Eutelsat was facing its own collapse before the merger, as its business was geosynchronous communications satellites which are now losing their business to the low-Earth orbit constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlab and OneWeb’s. The merger was the company’s attempt to join this new market.
OneWeb however has had its own repeated problems completing that its constellation, and faced bankruptcy in 2020 because of delays from the COVID panic as well as delays in launching the Ariane-6 rocket. Then Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 meant it lost all its remaining planned launches, forcing it to scramble to find other launch providers.
Stock market analysts don’t expect the combined company to begin earning profits for at least the next three to five years, which casts an even greater pall on its future.
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Despite its merger with Eutelsat in 2023, the stock value of the combined Eutelsat-OneWeb satellite company has plummeted in the past year, more than halving the value of the OneWeb portion that was saved from bankruptcy by both the government of the United Kingdom and investors from India in 2020.
The collapse means the UK’s investment is worth €133m (£110m), representing a near £300m paper loss for the taxpayer. … However, while the all-share deal implied a value of €12 per share, Eutelsat’s stock has since imploded. In the past 12 months, it has halved and is trading at record lows of €2.58.
Eutelsat was facing its own collapse before the merger, as its business was geosynchronous communications satellites which are now losing their business to the low-Earth orbit constellations such as SpaceX’s Starlab and OneWeb’s. The merger was the company’s attempt to join this new market.
OneWeb however has had its own repeated problems completing that its constellation, and faced bankruptcy in 2020 because of delays from the COVID panic as well as delays in launching the Ariane-6 rocket. Then Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 meant it lost all its remaining planned launches, forcing it to scramble to find other launch providers.
Stock market analysts don’t expect the combined company to begin earning profits for at least the next three to five years, which casts an even greater pall on its future.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
SES might pick it up?
SES has already picked up (picked off?) Greg Wyler’s first comsat constellation, O3B, so his second such effort, OneWeb, would fit right in. If he ever manages to make anything of that third opus he’s working via Rwanda, maybe SES can buy that, too, when it founders.