Eutelsat’s ground infrastructure sale falls through

TAMPA, Fla. — Eutelsat said a planned sale of its passive ground infrastructure to a private equity firm announced in August 2024 will not proceed, eliminating roughly 550 million euros ($658 million) in expected proceeds.

The French satellite operator and a fund run by EQT Partners of Sweden announced Jan. 29 that their deal had been called off after failing to meet unspecified conditions.

When the deal was announced, the companies said the transaction hinged on regulatory approvals, as well as consultations with French security authorities and employee representative bodies.

The transaction would have seen Eutelsat carve out land, buildings, antennas and other passive infrastructure assets and sell a majority stake to EQT Infrastructure VI, creating what the operator said would be the world’s largest pure-play, operator-neutral ground station-as-a-service company.

According to Eutelsat, the negative annualized impact on adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) associated with the deal amounted to between 75 to 80 million euros.

The company said the failed deal does not affect its financial objectives for the fiscal year ending June 2026, with the exception of net debt-to-EBITDA now expected to be around 2.7 times at the end of the period, versus 2.5 times previously.

Eutelsat also said the outcome does not affect its ability to fund its growth strategy, which recently saw the company order the remaining 340 satellites needed to replenish its low Earth orbit (LEO) OneWeb broadband constellation. 

Last year, the operator completed a 1.5 billion euro capital raise led by the French government, which has also committed to purchasing OneWeb services over 10 years as LEO connectivity takes on growing strategic and geopolitical importance.

EQT said it remains fully committed to SatPort Infrastructure, which it created to buy a majority stake in the carved-out ground infrastructure business. Eutelsat had agreed to reinvest to own 20% of SatPort Infrastructure as part of the deal.

“SatPort Infrastructure will continue to pursue its strategy of building a resilient, secure and scalable satellite ground infrastructure platform, serving a broad range of satellite operators, governments and enterprise customers,” EQT said in a news release.