UK Government and Bharti Global Consortium Win Bid for OneWeb Assets

New York City, NY, July 3, 2020--OneWeb announced today that it has entered into an agreement with a consortium led by the UK Government (through the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy) and Bharti Global for the acquisition of the OneWeb business in connection with its court-supervised sale process.

The bid is designed to capitalize the company sufficiently as a going concern to effectuate the full end-to-end deployment of the OneWeb system.Following a competitive process, the consortium’s winning bid represents a strong offer that will enable OneWeb to successfully emerge from the Chapter 11 process.

Bharti, through Bharti Airtel, is the third largest mobile operator in the world, with over 425 million customers. Bharti Airtel has its own extensive mobile broadband networks and enterprise business, which will act as the testing ground for all OneWeb products, services, and applications. Bharti will contribute significant contract value to OneWeb through its presence across South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where the terrain necessitates the use of satellite-based connectivity, providing a near-term anchor customer for large-scale global deployment of OneWeb’s services.

UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma confirmed that the government will invest US$ 500 million and take a significant equity share in OneWeb. He said "This deal underlines the scale of Britain’s ambitions on the global stage. Our access to a global fleet of satellites has the potential to connect millions of people worldwide to broadband, many for the first time, and the deal presents the opportunity to further develop our strong advanced manufacturing base right here in the UK."

The UK space sector is an economic success story, growing by over 60% since 2010. The sector, which already supports £300 billion of UK economic activity through the use of satellite services, is expected to grow further as new commercial opportunities are unlocked by this agreement.

OneWeb was formed in 2012, and has been developing cutting-edge satellite technology from its bases both here in the UK and in the United States.

The UK government will have a final say over any future sale of the company, and over future access to OneWeb technology by other countries on national security grounds.

The deal is subject to US court approval and regulatory clearances and is expected to close before the end of the year.