The European Commission said it has approved Eutelsat’s proposed restructuring into a private company, including the IPO of 30 percent of its shares within two years of its privatization.

The privatization will restructure Eutelsat into a private company under French law, with the shares being held by national Signatories. This it planned to occur next July. Therefore, the IPO would occur by July 2003.

“The IPO will dilute the shareholdings of the Signatories and will reduce the possible conflict of interest between their role as shareholders and as distributors of Eutelsat’s services respectively,” the EC said.

“It will also unambiguously permit the direct distribution of services by Eutelsat, rather than requiring customers to approach Eutelsat’s current distributors [primarily the Signatories], the commission said.

In approving the restructuring, the commission said it was “similar to that of Inmarsat,” which also sought and was granted the EC’s approval.