SoftBank will invest $1.7 billion in satellite provider Intelsat

Intelsat and OneWeb sign definitive combination agreement to merge in an all-stock transaction.

The Japanese telecommunications giant will become the majority shareholder in the resulting company with a 39.9% stake.

Thanks to a capital injection of $1.7 billion, SoftBank will take a privileged position in satellite operator Intelsat. This operation will facilitate its merger with the American startup OneWeb.

The Japanese telecommunications giant will thus become the majority shareholder of the resulting company with a 39.9% stake.

Softbank, which already invested $1 billion in OneWeb last December, frames this transaction in its strategy of “investing in revolutionary and fundamental technologies that are building the infrastructure of tomorrow,” according to its president Masayoshi Son.

This operation continues the line of investments that have led the company to buy just a few days ago the American investment manager Fortress Investment for 3.3 billion dollars, and previously, the mobile telephone operator in the USA, Sprint, and the British semiconductor and software development factory ARM Holding.