Consolidation in the satellite industry is expected to significantly increase in the coming years, as legacy operators struggle to meet the scale of the disruptive forces of SpaceX and Amazon.
One such merger that was touted between Luxembourg-based SES and US firm Intelsat, however, will not be taking place.
Rumours had been swirling that the two companies would be merging for a while, with the two companies confirming talks had begun in March.
Sources from SES told Bloomberg on Wednesday that Intelsat had walked away from the deal and a short statement was posted to SES’s website today.
“SES announces today that discussions regarding a possible combination with Intelsat have ceased. On 29 March 2023, SES had confirmed that the company engaged in discussions with Intelsat and that there could be no certainty that a transaction would materialise,” it read.
When approached by Capacity Intelsat said that it “engages in strategic conversations with potential partners on a regular basis, and we do not publicly comment on the content or outcome of those discussions.”
The news comes ten days after SES CEO Steve Collar steppe down from the top job after 20 years, with CTO Ruy Pinto filling his shoes in the interim until a new CEO is found.
Both Collar and Intelsat CEO David Wajsgras have spoken out in favour of consolidation in the industry, to be able to help compete with the hyperscale tech giants and Elon Musk’s SpaceX backed Starlink.
The scrapped deal could have been worth $10 billion and created an entity with over $4 billion of revenue.
Last month, Viasat received CMA approval for its Inmarsat takeover, and UK OneWeb is in the process of being merged with French Eutelsat with a deal expected to close in Q3 this year.
