The managing directors of Media Broadcast Satellite, Christian Fleischhauer and Sven Sünberg, as well as the technical director Qi Zhang-Holste, have agreed to take over the German satellite services provider from its previous parent company, a French-American private equity fund.
The three managers acquire all shares in the company based in Usingen near Frankfurt in federal state Hesse through the newly founded holding company MBS Holding. The purchase price was not disclosed. Wirtschafts- und Infrastrukturbank Hessen (WIBank) is providing a loan of €7.5 million to co-finance the takeover. A further €2 million will be contributed by managed funds of BM H Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen, a subsidiary of Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen.
The financial means of WIBank and BM H will not only enable the new shareholders to take over the company, but also to expand its service portfolio in a future-oriented manner and thus open up new markets, WIBank stresses in a statement. The company plans, for example, to expand its activities in commercial data traffic via satellite and the internet. Customer groups include government-related organisations on national and European level as well as globally active companies.
Additionally, Media Broadcast Satellite wants to use to financial means to invest in data transmission via satellite for fast-moving reception units such as cars, aircrafts and ships. The aim is to improve global satellite-based data exchange for road, air and sea traffic, also with a view to the future market for self-driving cars.
“Hesse is and should remain an attractive location for innovative technology companies. With this innovation loan, we are helping to secure Hesse’s economic future,” said Tarek Al-Wazir, Hesse’s Economics Minister (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen).
Media Broadcast Satellite was originally part of Media Broadcast Group which was acquired by Freenet in March 2016. The satellite division was excluded from the transaction and remained in the hands of the financial investors, who are now withdrawing from the company through the management buy-out.
Media Broadcast Satellite operates satellite communications services with around 70 employees at its earth station in Usingen. More than 230 million households in 60 countries in Europe, North Africa and the Arab world are supplied with around 225 TV channels from the uplink site. For data distribution via internet, the earth station is connected to the world’s largest internet hub in Frankfurt, DE-CIX.
