이 기사는 2021년 08월 18일 07시51분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Hanwha Systems, the defense and information technology arm of South Korea’s Hanwha Group, has acquired a minority stake in UK-based OneWeb as the company steps up efforts to compete for space internet.

The company in a regulatory filing last Thursday said that its board approved the purchase of an 8.81% stake in OneWeb for $300 million. The deal is subject to approval from the British government.

The announcement came about two months after Hanwha Systems completed its 1.16 trillion won ($985.7 million) rights issue in June. The company had said that the bulk of the proceeds from the rights issue would be used for investment in new business opportunities.

“(The investment) will enable us to better position ourselves in the race for space internet,” Hanwha Systems said in a press release.

Founded in 2014, OneWeb is a low-Earth orbit satellite communications company. It filed for bankruptcy protection in March last year as a result of a spending competition among industry players, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX, and the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In July last year, India’s Bharti Global and the UK government injected $1 billion to rescue OneWeb out of bankruptcy and acquire a combined 84% stake in the company. Other shareholders in OneWeb include France’s Eutelsat and Japan’s SoftBank.

OneWeb now has 254 satellites in orbit out of a planned 648. Satellites can offer high-speed internet access to locations that have no cables running anywhere close, such as jungles, ships in the middle of the sea and aircraft in the sky. This technology is also crucial for innovative technologies such as autonomous driving and urban air mobility.

Board representation secured

The investment will give Hanwha Systems a seat on OneWeb’s board of directors. This will enable the South Korean company to build connections with top executives at global telecommunications companies and high-ranking UK officials.

The OneWeb board is chaired by Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal. His son Shravin Mittal and Bharti Enterprises’ vice president Akhil Gupta sit on the OneWeb board. Michel Combes, the president of SoftBank Group International, and Neil Masterson, the chief executive of OneWeb, are also among the company’s board members.

There are several UK government officials serving on the OneWeb board – including Tom Cooper, a director of UK Government Investments Limited, the Met Office chair Rob Woodward and Hugo Robson, chief negotiator at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

“We will determine our representative on the OneWeb board after the deal closes,” Hanwha Systems said. (Reporting by Ki-soo Park)