This one may be worth dusting off again with the imminent acquisition of Inmarsat, sale of Link-16 unit and launch of the first ViaSat-3 satellite last month. Also, more data on LEO and an interesting recent article by Michael Sheetz at CNBC about Starlink growing the customer base rather than cannibalising legacy operators like ViaSat and Hughes.
Enjoyable read, thank you. I noted that Dankberg thinks they can achieve $6bn revenue from each of the 1Tb satellites and you wrote only $1bn per satellite? I think crowded spectrum will also be an issue for LEO. You’re already reading about the battles between Amazon and SpaceX. Did Baupost’s investment lead you to take a closer look at this industry?
Nice work. I was short VSAT in the 2016/2017 timeframe. Always thought it was a good business but you had to pay a lot for it and FCF was so far away (as was diversification away from the U.S., where SATS still out-executes them on resi despite "inferior" technology). But I recently initiated a long position in VSAT primarily due the the attractiveness of the defense business. We are getting closer to FCF and getting a 20x+ multiple defense business for a fraction of its worth. You didn't mention this, but VSAT is a decent acquisition target as well. Or if they can finally get together with SATS I think that's an incredibly attractive deal for both companies.
This one may be worth dusting off again with the imminent acquisition of Inmarsat, sale of Link-16 unit and launch of the first ViaSat-3 satellite last month. Also, more data on LEO and an interesting recent article by Michael Sheetz at CNBC about Starlink growing the customer base rather than cannibalising legacy operators like ViaSat and Hughes.
Enjoyable read, thank you. I noted that Dankberg thinks they can achieve $6bn revenue from each of the 1Tb satellites and you wrote only $1bn per satellite? I think crowded spectrum will also be an issue for LEO. You’re already reading about the battles between Amazon and SpaceX. Did Baupost’s investment lead you to take a closer look at this industry?
Nice write up! Did you compare against SES SA (SESG LX, SESG FP)? I think they should be included in the 'duopoly' for aero/maritim.
https://wp.me/pa7fvX-md
Nice work. I was short VSAT in the 2016/2017 timeframe. Always thought it was a good business but you had to pay a lot for it and FCF was so far away (as was diversification away from the U.S., where SATS still out-executes them on resi despite "inferior" technology). But I recently initiated a long position in VSAT primarily due the the attractiveness of the defense business. We are getting closer to FCF and getting a 20x+ multiple defense business for a fraction of its worth. You didn't mention this, but VSAT is a decent acquisition target as well. Or if they can finally get together with SATS I think that's an incredibly attractive deal for both companies.