Here is some additional info on the Apstar buy. NYTimes says the buy allows Loral to bypass the US Govts. export restrictions on launches. Also says Loral reported it has pulled the launch from the Long March. (Which I dont remember seeing previously.) Bernie looks like he is still wheeling and dealing. IF Loral can make it through this tight stretch, they might in fact be well positioned IF the market ever picks up. (As an aside, with the DirectTV- Echostar merger looking more unlikely, perhaps the value of multiple vendors is coming back into fashion. But is three US vendors better than two? Personally, I would pay for a Loral Bird before a Boeing and certainly before a LM item. Anyone who actually counts feel the same? Time will tell.)
Jeff Vayda
Loral Takes Satellite Stake To Ease Plans for Launch
The Wall Street Journal 09/24/02
(Copyright (c) 2002, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
NEW YORK -- Loral Space & Communications Ltd., facing continued U.S. government resistance to sales of
commercial satellites to Chinese companies, is buying half the interest in a still-unfinished satellite made for a Hong Kong
customer.
Loral said it is acquiring a 50% stake in Apstar-V from Hong Kong-based APT Satellite Holdings Ltd. for $115 million, to
be paid over six years. The change in ownership, coupled with Loral's announcement that it no longer plans to launch the
satellite on a Chinese-built Long March rocket, means that Loral can put the satellite into space without U.S. export
licenses. The satellite is expected to begin providing service by early 2004 and will cover the Asian region.
Loral's move indicates that despite years of striving to convince Congress and the White House to ease up on
satellite-export restrictions, the company's top management remains pessimistic that such a political breakthrough is near.
The diplomatic tussle threatens to further erode Loral's financial condition. The New York manufacturer and operator of
satellites for three years has been warehousing a completed second satellite ordered by another Chinese customer pending
U.S. approvals. Already facing severe cash-flow problems, expected net losses over the next two years and a falloff in
both its manufacturing and services businesses, Loral must find a way to refund more than $140 million to the original
customer if ChinaSat-VIII isn't handed over in operating condition. Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz has said that he
plans to repay the money only after finding an alternate buyer. |
