Europe approves SES purchase of Intelsat
The European Commission has now approved the purchase of the long established satellite communications company Intelsat by the long established Luxembourg satellite communications company SES for about $4 billion.
This decision follows an approval by the government of the United Kingdom. It now appears the only remaining regulatory hurdle is approvals by the FCC and the Department of Justice in the U.S.
This buy-out follows similar mergers by other old established satellite companies, such as the merger of Viasat with Imarsat and OneWeb with Eutelsat. All are occurring because these older companies, which mostly launched large geosynchronous satellites, have been under heavy competitive pressure from the low orbit constellations like Starlink and OneWeb.
Whether these older companies can compete following these mergers however remains uncertain. To succeed they need to have a product customers want, and at the moment it isn’t clear they have one.
The European Commission has now approved the purchase of the long established satellite communications company Intelsat by the long established Luxembourg satellite communications company SES for about $4 billion.
This decision follows an approval by the government of the United Kingdom. It now appears the only remaining regulatory hurdle is approvals by the FCC and the Department of Justice in the U.S.
This buy-out follows similar mergers by other old established satellite companies, such as the merger of Viasat with Imarsat and OneWeb with Eutelsat. All are occurring because these older companies, which mostly launched large geosynchronous satellites, have been under heavy competitive pressure from the low orbit constellations like Starlink and OneWeb.
Whether these older companies can compete following these mergers however remains uncertain. To succeed they need to have a product customers want, and at the moment it isn’t clear they have one.