DDI, Kyocera May Buy Out Iridium's Australian Arm, Nikkei Says
Bloomberg News
August 21, 1999, 12:06 a.m. PT
Tokyo, Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) -- DDI Corp., Japan's third-
largest telecommunication carrier, and its largest shareholder
Kyocera Corp., which makes semiconductor and electrical
components, may buy the shares they don't already own in Iridium
South Pacific, the Australian arm of Iridium LLC, the global
satellite telephone company that defaulted Aug. 13 on $1.55
billion in bank loans, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said, without
citing sources. The two companies currently own a combined 50
percent of the outstanding shares of Iridium South Pacific, and
may increase their stakes in early October, when Iridium South
Pacific plans to issue new shares. Iridium South Pacific's cell
phone and pager services in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and
other South Pacific regions are growing slower than planned, the
report said.
DDI on Aug. 14 said that it is willing to provide ``several
billion yen' to Iridium LLC, which defaulted its bank loans
after failed to lure enough users to its 66-satelline
international phone network, if asked to as part of the satellite
phone company's rehabilitation plan.
(Nihon Keizai, 8/21, p. 9)(www.nikkei.co.jp)
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