If you follow the satellite market you can't have failed to notice big changes going on amongst the satellite operators. 

When Sir Arthur C. Clarke suggested in his 1945 article in Wireless World magazine that the communications needs of the whole world could be served by a network of three geostationary satellites above the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans he really didn't know what he was starting off. 

Fifty years later as the dotcom boom really got underway, working for a satellite operator was a lot of fun. One satellite operator is known to have sold out all of their capacity on a new satellite on life-of-satellite leases even before they had placed the order to have it manufactured!  That was the peak after 50 years of slow steady growth - now we're definitely in decline towards a niche market product.

Satellite operators started out as legal monopolies, protected by international treaties and conventions. As the industry developed there was a gradual shift towards privatisation, initial public offerings, and subsequently astronomic market capitalisations. However, in the last few years Inmarsat, PanAmSat, NEWskies and Intelsat have all fallen to private equity investors. Europe*Star has recently been bought-out by PanAmSat.

Times have not been easy for staff who had become accustomed to an easy life - the arrival of the private equity investors is not usually noted for 10% across-the-board pay rises and the reinstatement of First Class air travel, and there have been some difficult changes for their staff to adjust to.

Eutelsat hasn't fallen directly to private equity, but with the UK (BT), France (France Telecom), Germany (Deutsche Telekom) and Italy (Telecom Italia) all selling out their stakes to private equity over the last few years more than 80% of the company's equity is now in the hands of private equity.

The only major satellite operator that has bucked the trend - so far - is  SES Global, and they have always been privately owned.

Things don't look too good for the satellite operators. But for their customers, this is definitely the right time to be buying... 

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