Mitsubishi Corporation has sold a 51% stake in its satellite imagery business Japan Space Imaging Corporation (JSI) to fellow engineering and electronics conglomerate Hitachi. Financial details were not disclosed but based on JSI’s stated capital of…
Mitsubishi Corporation has sold a 51% stake in its satellite imagery business Japan Space Imaging Corporation (JSI) to fellow engineering and electronics conglomerate Hitachi.
Financial details were not disclosed but based on JSI’s stated capital of Y490m, Hitachi would have paid in the region of Y250m (US$2.53m).
Following completion of the transaction, Hitachi and Mitsubishi will jointly operate JSI with the former holding a majority 51% stake, the latter 43.9% and NEC Corporation the remaining 5.1%.
The reason behind the merger was in fact another merger, the January 2013 acquisition of GeoEye by DigitalGlobe. Both Mitsubishi, with JSI, and Hitachi, through its subsidiary Hitachi Solutions, have satellite imagery distribution rights with the two US earth observation operators. JSI has sold GeoEye imagery to the commercial market since 1998, while Hitachi Solutions has worked with DigitalGlobe since 1997, predominantly selling its imagery to the Japanese Ministry of Defence.
The completion of the US$900m merger prompted the two Japanese companies to carry out reviews into the structure of their relative satellite imagery businesses. As a result, the two decided to collaborate through JSI.
As part of its restructuring, JSI announced in May of this year that it had entered into a multi-year, strategic partnership with nascent satellite imaging operator Skybox Imaging.
The agreement enables JSI to directly task, downlink and receive high-resolution imagery and full motion commercial video from Skybox’s constellation of microsatellites.
Skybox’s first two microsatellites, SkySat-1 and SkySat-2, are scheduled for launch in late 2013 and early 2014.
