Viasat’s $7.3 billion attempt to acquire London-based Inmarsat has hit a potential problem following an “in-depth” investigation by the a European Commission (EC), which says it is “concerned that the transaction may allow Viasat to reduce competition in the market for the supply of broadband in-flight connectivity (IFC) services to commercial airlines”. The Viasat/Inmarsat deal, […]
Richard Sharp, the current Chair of the BBC, may have been an outstanding banker. He worked for both JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs and, presumably, made them a lot of money, certainly made himself rich. Is that the definition of a good banker? Did he do it more outstandingly than any of the other individuals […]
Charlie Ergen, co-founder of Dish and EchoStar, has something of a reputation as a poker player. Indeed, he was allegedly once banned from a casino at Lake Tahoe many years ago. A report from Tim Farrar of TMF Associates focuses on a filing by Globalstar which has notified the market that it had entered into […]
In post-results comments to market analysts, Viasat’s chairman Mark Dankberg said the combination of its expanding ViaSat-3 ‘next generation’ satellites, plus the L-band services from Inmarsat (which it is in the process of acquiring) would equal the sort of rival satellite-based offerings from the likes of SpaceX/T-Mobile, Apple/Globalstar, Iridium/Qualcomm, Lynk Global and AST SpaceMobile. All […]
Space-focused investment business Seraphim, which this week partnered with the European Space Agency (ESA), has issued its annual map of how it sees the complete space business. It sees itself as a ‘space accelerator’ and its Seraphim Space Investment Trust targets early and growth stage Space Tech companies that have the potential to dominate globally […]
Elon Musk’s Starlink is well on its way to completing its first tier of 4,000 low Earth orbiting satellites. Recent data shows that 3,875 craft have been launched (including some Gen-2 versions), although not all reached orbit. Nevertheless, a report from Tim Farrar of TMF Associates suggests that Musk’s SpaceX is targeting a new business […]
SES has had a legal action running against Intelsat which asks for Intelsat to pay what SES alleged was Intelsat’s 50 per cent of the costs of running the C-Band Alliance. The action is paused while the larger legal action against Intelsat and where SES is suing for a 50/50 division of the FCC’s Accelerated […]
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit satellite launch business has raised a financial stop-gap of $10 million (€9.1m), according to a filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) on January 30th. The cash comes from a sister – but separate – company, Virgin Investments Limited (VIL), the investment arm of the Branson’s Virgin Group. […]
Under the overall umbrella of the African Union Commission (AUC) and the Egyptian government, the African Space Agency has been created. Its HQ is within the grounds of Egypt Space City outside Cairo. A special ceremony was held with Egypt’s Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research on January 25th to formally inaugurate and declare […]
Paramount has announced that its Showtime brand is set to be merged with Paramount+. In the US, the streaming and linear platforms will now be rebranded as ‘Paramount+ With Showtime’. Later this year the Showtime streaming service will cease operations. In a memo to staff, Paramount Global CEO Bob Bakish said: “With Showtime’s content integrated […]