Eutelsat just completed its half a billion investment in OneWEB for a 17% stake in the company. So far, OneWEB raised more than 2.4B$ from investors like Bharti (India), the British government, Softbank (Japan) and Hugues Network Systems (US). The company emerged from bankrupcy earlier this year and has no debt.
Just after the announcement, the Eutelsat stock lost 1%, probably reflecting the doubts of the market towards this strategic move. In addition, at the time the EC with Thierry Breton is pushing for a sovereign European broadband constellation, the decision of Eutelsat to join OneWEB, perceived as a non-European competitor, surprised the industry.
Eutelsat’s changing strategy, ranging from IoT (Sigfox investment, ELO project) to LEO broadband is demonstrating that the company is still looking to build its future.
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