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Viasat CEO Sees Growth Path Ahead

Viasat Inc. (Nasdaq: VSAT) is a $2 billion company. Rick Baldridge, who was named CEO late last year, wants to see the Carlsbad business double its size by the middle of the decade.

In a January interview, Baldridge said he feels the worldwide market for affordable bandwidth is “enormous and growing rapidly.”

Some people feel there is a limited amount of business to go after. Not so, Baldridge said. Even with new players rushing into the satellite internet market, it’s not a zero-sum game.

In taking over for founding CEO Mark Dankberg in November, Baldridge asserted that the best is yet to come for his company. “I don’t think there has ever been anywhere near the amount of opportunity in front of us as there is today,” he said recently. “If we are modestly successful, there is a tremendous amount of growth for Viasat.”

Viasat plans to launch three ViaSat-3 class satellites that will provide nearly worldwide coverage. The first launch is set for late this year.

Viasat’s underlying technology works. “We know that,” Baldridge said. The question, he said, is whether Viasat can get its business model right, and get the right partners, and execute well in its new worldwide markets.

Two recent acquisitions should help Viasat establish its market for ViaSat-3, Baldridge said. The company recently agreed to buy a partner’s share in a European satellite joint venture. It also entered an agreement to buy RigNet Inc., a Houston based software and communications infrastructure company with employees in 52 countries, in a $222 million deal.

“All have local presence in some of these markets [for Viasat-3] and that allows us to reduce the risk of execution,” he said.

The Long View

Baldridge has the long view on where his company has been. He joined Viasat in 1999.

“It’s a very different looking company” now, he said. “Gosh, we’re 50 times bigger — that order of magnitude.”

In 1999, defense contracting made up more than 95% of Viasat’s business. In most cases, Viasat built hardware for other defense prime contractors. “Today we mostly sell directly to government agencies … we compete with other defense primes,” he said. A large portion of Viasat’s business today is services, and the market is fairly evenly split between government and commercial.

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