In the last month, 2 of the 5 commercial satellite operators in Europe have changed ownership; Deimos Imaging was acquired by Urthecast (Canada) and yesterday Blackbridge announced that the business which formerly traded as Rapideye would be sold to PlanetLabs (US). Both these deals are “industrial” or strategic, meaning it is not just a question of changing financial ownership. What does this mean?

After these deals, Europe is essentially left with 2 companies which offer satellite imagery; Airbus and E-geos/Telespazio. Neither of these companies owns the satellites they operate but rather have exclusive rights to distribute data commercially. The SPOT and Whilst SPOT 6 & 7 are owned by Airbus, the Pleides satellites are owned by CNES, ownership is shared between Airbus and DLR for TerraSAR-X and the satellites operated by DMCii have many owners whilst Cosmo is owned by the Italian government and data rights lie with Telespazio.

Hence the only two independent operators in Europe have been acquired by North American operators. It seems to be a strong vote for European technology and constitutes a strong, positive message concerning the future market, but the European backers of both Rapideye (which went into bankruptcy in 2009 before selling to the Canadian investment fund Blackbridge) and Deimos have preferred to see a capital return rather than continue to be present in the EO market. As far as I am aware these are both 100% exits and neither retains a stake in the enlarged businesses.

Does it reflect a lack of vision from European companies or are the reasons more fundamental? It demonstrates a dependence on public investment which is not the case in North America. Both Planetlabs and Urthecast are private companies backed by venture capital. They are taking risk to enter the emerging market for commercial EO services with the vision that this will be one key element in the Digital market. Recall also the presence of Google which acquired the Skybox Imaging business last year.

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