Posted: Wed, Jul 25, 2012, 2:05 PM ET (1805 GMT)
The two major commercial remote sensing companies in the United States announced plans this week to merge, a move prompted by declining government budgets for satellite imagery. Under the $900-million deal, announced Monday, DigitalGlobe will take a 64% stake in the merged company, which will retain the name DigitalGlobe, while GeoEye will take the remaining 36%. The ten-member board of directors of the merged company will include six people from DigitalGlobe's board and four from GeoEye; the president and CEO of DigitalGlobe will retain that position in the merged company while GeoeEye's president and CEO will serve as an advisor. The deal comes nearly two months after GeoEye made an unsolicited takeover offer of DigitalGlobe, which was rejected. The move was prompted by projected spending cuts by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), the largest customer of the high-resolution imagery the two companies provide.
