PARIS (Reuters) – French satellite company Eutelsat, which rejected a takeover proposal from billionaire Patrick Drahi, said it had raised its stake in London-headquartered communications network company OneWeb to 22.9%.
“Eutelsat Communications has exercised a call option on a portion of the latest OneWeb funding round subscribed by Bharti, for a consideration of $165 million, taking its shareholding from 17.6% to 22.9%,” it said on Wednesday.
Last month, Drahi, whose business interests include auction house Sotheby’s and media group Altice, made a 12.10 euros per share offer for Eutelsat, which was rejected.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Jason Neely)