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Technology Stocks : Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ALTERN8 who wrote (335)	3/4/2003 6:15:13 PM
From: ALTERN8	Respond to of 8420

Sirius shareholders OK recap plan Satellite radio broadcaster tries to stave off bankruptcy By David B. Wilkerson, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 12:50 PM ET March 4, 2003 NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- Sirius Satellite Radio, a struggling provider of digital radio programming, took a step toward fighting off bankruptcy Tuesday when its shareholders approved a recapitalization plan. In the vote, taken at a special meeting in New York, 68 percent of the company's stockholders OK'd the move to exchange about $700 million in debt for common stock and $519 million in preferred stock for common stock and warrants. Sirius (SIRI: news, chart, profile) also plans to obtain $200 million in additional cash through the sale of newly issued common stock. OppenheimerFunds, Inc. ($150 million), Apollo Management, L.P. ($25 million) and The Blackstone Group L.P. ($25 million) will provide the cash. Once the deal is complete, these entities will exchange all of their convertible preferred stock for new shares of Sirius stock, along with warrants to buy more of the shares. The restructuring is still contingent upon completion of the company's debt exchange offer, which is scheduled to expire at 5 p.m. Eastern time. If it cannot complete the restructuring, Sirius would go ahead with a "prepackaged bankruptcy." Shares of Sirius closed 9 cents lower at 71 cents, a loss of 11 percent. Sirius offers a satellite-based radio service that offers 100 channels of programming covering every major music format, as well as news, sports and talk, for $12.95 per month. Its 60 music channels are commercial-free. The company says it needs about 3 million subscribers to break even; it only had about 30,000 at the end of last year. Ford (F: news, chart, profile) plans to offer factory-installed Sirius radios in its vehicles later this year; DaimlerChrysler and BMW offer them as a dealer-installed option. Rival XM Satellite Radio (XMSR: news, chart, profile) has a significant head start on XM; it has more than 360,000 subscribers and a major commitment from General Motors. GM offered XM as a factory-installed option in 25 of its 57 vehicle models for 2003 and plans to up that figure to 44 models in 2004.