Macron urges Europe to ramp up space investment as Eutelsat climbs

Bangkok Post Group

French President Emmanuel Macron threw his weight behind plans for a European satellite manufacturing champion on Friday (June 20), declaring space the next frontier for competition between world powers. - REUTERS

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00:00Eudelsat shares soared on Friday after France said it would inject $1.55 billion into the

00:08debt-laden satellite company, giving a boost to Europe's biggest hope for a champion to rival

00:13Starlink. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged countries and companies as a matter

00:20of European sovereignty to invest in the French satellite company. Speaking at the Paris air

00:25show, the world's largest aerospace event, he said, space has in some way become a gauge of

00:31international power. The company's shares were up 27.5 percent around midday and the stock has

00:39gained 59.61 percent year-to-date. Elon Musk has disrupted space-based communications with his

00:47rapidly growing constellation of low-Earth orbit satellites, amassing more than six million

00:52Starlink uses worldwide. With about 650 active satellites, Eudelsat is much smaller. However,

01:00as the only other player with a major operational low-orbit constellation, it has attracted interest

01:06from European governments, whose eagerness for non-US alternatives derives from President

01:11Donald Trump's confrontational approach to their region. Some analysts, however, were cautious

01:17about Eudelsat's prospects. JP Morgan says its leverage was expected to remain high in the

01:23medium term. Eudelsat expects its debt level to fall to about three times annual earnings after the

01:29capital increase, down from four times today and are projected five times by mid-2026, JP Morgan added

01:36in a note to investors.

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