[Satellite News 05-06-09] Swedish Space Corp. (SSC) will run a U.S. corporation, Universal Space Network (USN), as a subsidiary after the U.S. government approved SSC’s acquisition of USN with no changes to its corporate structure or operations.
    “We prefer to talk about this acquisition as a merger between the parties. We will now become the largest independent commercial ground station network. We have been working together for about 10 years. We have had a good partnership for 10 years, and now it is time to marry,” SSC CEO Lars Persson said.
    SSC reached an agreement in January to purchase all of USN’s stock, combining the two companies that have been cooperating on projects such as PrioraNet, a global satellite tracking service for civil space, commercial and public missions, since 1999.
Persson said the move was aimed to target customers who wanted a one-stop shop for commercial satellite tracking services. “Customers have been telling us it is very important to have a one-stop shop, and to have one network and one partner to talk to,” he told Satellite News in January.
    “The objective of this acquisition has been to increase the robustness of USN’s current operations services while enabling expansion of commercially based mission critical operations services to the industry,” USN CEO Tom Ingersoll said in a statement. “As part of the SSC group, USN is now well positioned to provide expanded, long-term satellite operations services to its U.S. customers.”
    While the specifics of the amount of control SSC will have over its new subsidiary have not been announced, Persson said USN would continue as an independent operation. “That is important. [USN] will continue to work independently on the U.S. market. We will have a new board coming in with security-cleared U.S. citizens. We will take the synergies where we can. We will use the unified network where the customers agree to that.”
Persson said that the primary focus of the acquisition process has been on increasing the robustness of its current space communications services while expanding its breadth of commercially based mission critical space operations services to the space industry.
     SSC also is establishing itself in other North and South American markets. In 2008, the company bought the Santiago satellite station from the University of Chile and invested with Canadian partners to build an independent polar orbiting satellite network with redundancies. However, Persson ruled out future acquisitions.
    According to its own projections, SSC is expecting overall revenue growth of 30 percent in 2009 with more than 80 percent of its expected revenues already contracted.
    “We have a huge backlog of contracts that covers the next 10 years. This is not quarterly business. This is long-term business. … We think the market for us will grow due to the economic constraints. We are certain the industry will outsource more so as not to have the costs in-house. Instead they will buy services rather than invest in their own infrastructure. This is a business where you have economies of scale, so we will continue to grow with our customers,” said Persson.