Corporate headquarters no longer in the picture
Canadian company finalizes $2.4B purchase of Westminster satellite imaging pioneer
Colorado lost a corporate headquarters Thursday as a Canadian space company completed its $2.4 billion acquisition of DigitalGlobe, the Westminster taker of high-resolution photos of Earth from space.
The deal marks the latest shift in Colorado’s leading role in the satellite imagery industry. Another Colorado pioneer in the field, Space Imaging, was purchased in 2006 by a company that later merged with DigitalGlobe.
The DigitalGlobe purchase was so important for Vancouver, British Columbiabased MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd., its CEO said, that it revamped its entire operation, starting with a new name: Maxar Technologies.
“While financially, this is an acquisition, we haven’t acted like that. This is a merger of the best of the best,” said Howard Lance, who became MDA’s president and chief executive officer in April 2016. “We decided to use this as an opportunity to rebrand the parent company.”
Maxar built its leadership team that is about half MDA and half DigitalGlobe executives. Timothy Hascall, an executive vice president with DigitalGlobe, became Maxar’s chief operations officer. Walter Scott, who founded the precursor to DigitalGlobe, becomes Maxar’s chief technology officer. DigitalGlobe CEO Jeffrey Tarr, however, is leaving, though he’ll stay on as an adviser through at least January.
Maxar also maintains four brands in four locations with each operating autonomously. That includes DigitalGlobe, and also a Virginia company DigitalGlobe acquired last year, The Radiant Group, which focuses on geospatial analysis. Radiant Solutions will stay in Virginia, where it employs 1,000 engineers and scientists who have U.S. government security clearance.
The other two are MDA-owned SSL, which builds satellite and space equipment systems and is based in Silicon Valley; and MDA, the Canadian operation focusing on space robotics, satellite antennas and surveillance.
But key to all this was setting up a U.S.-based operating company in San Francisco so MDA could get U.S. government contracts. The process began more than 18 months ago when MDA made Lance, who is based in San Francisco, its new CEO. In January, MDA received a security control agreement from the U.S. Department of Defense to open the path for MDA to pursue government space and defense contracts. A month later, MDA announced it would buy DigitalGlobe.
“That allows us to do classified business with the U.S. government,” Lance said.
He said that by combining MDA and DigitalGlobe’s expertise, Maxar now has an “end to end” space solution to offer commercial and government customers. DigitalGlobe uses electro-optical technology — essentially giant cameras that capture what humans normally see and what they don’t via the electromagnetic spectrum range — to get the high-resolution images. MDA uses radar, which can “see through cloud, smoke and foliage,” Lance said.
“Put those together and you have 24/7 all-weather intelligence gathering, whether for a commercial company doing mapping or the U.S. government or its allies doing intelligence gathering,” Lance said. He added: “This allows us to package end-to-end solutions for the government or international customers in a way that hasn’t been done as independent companies. We’re the only U.S. company that has all of these technologies.”
The MDA acquisition gave DigitalGlobe shareholders $17.50 and 0.3132 MDA common shares for each DigitalGlobe share. The company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday but also continues to trade on the Toronto exchange. The ticker will change to MAXR next week.
The company employs 6,500 worldwide, with about 1,150 at DigitalGlobe. About 600 of those are moving over to Radiant Solutions.