Next week’s virtual Connectivity Next Summit will cover several key topics across the satellite connectivity industry with input from executive thought leaders starting Monday morning.
“Connectivity Next Summit is one of the few shows that brings together not just the industry but also the other side of the equation – the financial community,” Noel Rimalovski, managing director at investment bank GH Partners, tells Connectivity Business News on this episode of ”The Dish” podcast. Rimalovski will speak on current M&A trends in the space sector.
“That’s both public and private investors, private capital providers, VC funds, institutionals, including pension funds. It gives us a sense of what the investor is looking for and their associated appetite for risk. This is certainly a sector with plenty of risk to go around,” he said.
The conference comes at a crucial moment in the global economy’s progress to re-stabilization following recovery from the pandemic and recent geopolitical tensions.
“We’ve seen some cases of distress [this year], which we think is going to continue because a lot of business models have been very dependent upon low cost or easy access to capital, and that’s gotten a lot tighter, not uniquely to the space sector of course, though this sector has been impacted more than others,” Rimalovski said. “Companies that are doing well right now are going to be consolidators. This is certainly something we’re going to speak on in the panel.”
A conference with a mission
Connectivity Next Summit will also highlight the crucial work of nonprofit organizations striving to address the digital divide globally.
Companies across the industry providing connectivity have a part to play in bridging the digital divide, bringing the unconnected world online through innovation and cost-savings.
“The digital divide is an issue that affects many industries,” Mea Thompson, chief commercial officer and co-founder of The Unconnected Foundation, tells CBN on the podcast. The foundation, a charitable partner of the Connectivity Next Summit, will also present at the event.
“Telecom is one [issue],” she said of the digital divide, “but it also affects banking, health care and commerce. They all have a joint need to solve this issue. It’s been our focus to make this cross-industry alliance.”
The livestreamed Connectivity Next Summit 2023, taking place on Nov. 13-14, will explore the latest space and ground innovations, trends in satellite manufacturing, and the economics impacting the global satellite and terrestrial connectivity infrastructure. Learn more about this free event and register here.