US satellite firm’s takeover of Inmarsat ‘not a step-in-and-steal deal’
The chief executive of the US satellite company that is buying Inmarsat for $7.3bn (£5.4bn) said that it is not “stealing” Britain’s crown jewel in the space communications race, and is confident the deal would be cleared by a potential investigation by the government to assess the threat of a foreign takeover to national security.
Rick Baldridge, the chief executive of Viasat, was in London with his team last week to meet government agencies, Inmarsat management and media as part of a mission to pave the way for clearance of the California-based company’s biggest ever deal.
“This is not a step-in-and-steal deal,” Baldridge said. “We have a longstanding relationship in the UK, we didn’t just come here for this deal. It isn’t about ripping out cost to make the numbers. I don’t think people here will see a lot of change.”
Baldridge, who says that Viasat UK has had responsibility for encrypted classified UK information for years, pointed out that there were no issues raised with Inmarsat being taken private by a private equity consortium with a large proportion of non-UK based investors three years ago.
“Inmarsat has already been sold to private equity,” he said. “They are already 75% owned by non-UK based investors, probably more than that. We have had business over here in information security, primarily with the MoD, for over a decade.”
However, in the intervening years the geopolitical climate relating to the takeover of assets considered of national strategic importance has rapidly changed, with the takeover of firms such as Arm, a key global player in the semiconductor industry, to aerospace and defence businesses such as Meggitt and Ultra Electronics, all being assessed over the threat to national security.
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