Gilat Acquires the Rest of StarBand

Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. said Monday that its Spacenet Inc. subsidiary has acquired all remaining shares of StarBand Communications Inc. not already owned by Gilat.

StarBand will be merged into Spacenet. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Gilat expects the combined Spacenet and StarBand operations to achieve greater efficiencies and economies of scale, and the company added that Spacenet customers and current StarBand customers should not experience any interruptions or loss of service quality related to the merger.

“The merged operations significantly enrich our value proposition to both Spacenet and StarBand customers," Spacenet CEO Bill Gerety said in a prepared statement.

"Spacenet will leverage StarBand's scalable ISP [Internet-service provider] infrastructure and affordable offerings to create new services for business customers,” he added. “We will also be able to bring Spacenet's enterprise-grade application services and network-management offerings to StarBand's customers.”

Gilat chairman and CEO Shlomo Rodav added, “We believe this transaction is an important step forward in our efforts to grow Gilat's service business unit. With Spacenet and StarBand operating together, we see a synergistic opportunity for growth and efficiency as one tightly integrated business serves the needs of all satellite-network users in North America.

StarBand emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2003 after filing May 31, 2002.