Inmarsat has acquired maritime communications services firm Globe Wireless for US$45m.
The transaction, which will be funded from available liquidity, is subject to certain regulatory requirements and is expected to be completed in January…
Inmarsat has acquired maritime communications services firm Globe Wireless for US$45m.
The transaction, which will be funded from available liquidity, is subject to certain regulatory requirements and is expected to be completed in January 2014.
Headquartered in Florida, Globe Wireless specialises in providing value-added communications services to the maritime industry. It serves more than 550 ship operators with over 8,000 ships and in the twelve months ended 30 June 2013, the company generated revenues of US$91m.
The company, though, is loss-making and back in August carried out a US$15.8m refinancing transaction in order to restructure its debt.
However, Inmarsat said that the acquisition would deliver significant operational synergies through the integration of Globe Wireless with Inmarsat’s maritime business unit. Indeed, Inmarsat expects the deal to deliver a material improvement in profitability within the first year.
Commenting on the transaction, Rupert Pearce, CEO of Inmarsat, said: “This is a highly compelling transaction for Inmarsat. Adding the Globe Wireless team will immediately bring material benefits, enabling a faster roll-out of XpressLink, FleetBroadband and transition to Global Xpress in due course. We are also acquiring a skilled and established solutions development team that has been responsible for a market-leading portfolio of value added services.
“Accessing this portfolio offers a truly exciting cross-selling opportunity for our channel partners and ourselves, across the entire Inmarsat installed maritime base. This is a transaction that both accelerates our longer term strategic aims and can deliver meaningful contribution in the short term.”
This focus on bolstering its value added services offering and engineering expertise highlights a shift in Inmarsat’s acquisition strategy away from vertical integration.
In a recent interview with SatelliteFinance, Pearce said: “We’ve got no plans to extend ourselves downstream, I think the marriage between the satellite operator and our distribution partners is a very good one.
“But what we do think about strategically is where we need new skill sets, new capabilities at the network level to be able to drive more value into the hands of our distribution partners. A lot of what we are doing at the moment is investing in core enabling technology.
“It is at the heart of the network where you can leverage technology very very powerfully. What we are hoping to be in years to come is the centre of a really powerful value added ecosystem between developers, innovators and distributers that targets the markets we serve.”
Trinity Advisers provided financial advice to Inmarsat on the acquisition.
