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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Drew Williams who wrote (4857)	11/12/1998 8:07:00 AM
From: Jeff Vayda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

All: rehash of quarter results, but a glowing recommendation towards the end of the article. LORAL SUFFERS INCREASED LOSSES IN THIRD QUARTER Big investments in its Globalstar L.P. [GSTRF] and CyberStar affiliates led to increased losses for Loral Space & Communications Ltd. [LOR] in its third quarter ended Sept. 30. Third quarter earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) before development costs and affiliate "elimination" rose to $38 million from $30 million in the same period a year ago, reflecting growth in Loral's fixed satellite services businesses. The company reported a net loss of $22 million (8 cents per share) after continued investments in Globalstar and CyberStar, compared with a loss of $16 million (6 cents per share) in last year's third quarter. Revenues from operations for the quarter totaled $349 million before intercompany and affiliate eliminations of $59 million, versus the previous year's third-quarter revenues and eliminations of $423 million and $52 million, respectively. Loral blamed the decline on unspecified timing issues between the third and fourth quarters. Sales in 1998 reflect the negative impact of the $291 million "debooking" in 1997 of three satellites by two Asian customers. Third quarter results also reflect certain non-recurring items, including a gain of $35 million related to a Globalstar stock transaction and a charge of $7.3 million, representing Loral's proportionate share of Globalstar's Zenit launch failure. Paid orders at Sept. 30 was $2.3 billion before inter-company and affiliate eliminations of $247 million compared with $2 billion and $253 million, respectively, at the same time last year. Total bookings for the year to date were $1.2 billion before eliminations, while third quarter bookings before eliminations were $138 million. The company expects substantially higher fourth quarter bookings. ...Bear Stearns Predicts Loral Is Ripe For Explosive Growth Vijay Jayant, a satellite analyst with New York-based investment bank Bear Stearns, expressed optimism about Loral's prospects in a research report he wrote after a conference call between the company's management and industry analysts. Highlights of the call included the continued support of Globalstar's partners for meeting the venture's future funding need, Loral meeting Wall Street analyst's consensus expectations for the year, continued development of Globalstar's launch manifest and no weak link among its various operations. Loral now is on the cusp of an impressive growth period with the launch of five geostationary satellites and the commercial launch of the Cyberstar and Globalstar service in 1999. As a result, the company's EBITDA is expected to more than double in 1999, Jayant said. [my bold] "Loral management believes that its current cash on hand and bank availability will be sufficient to fully develop all its wholly owned operations," Jayant said. "We believe that this statement assumes that the partially owned subsidiaries like Globalstar, Europe*star, Cyberstar and SatMex will have to independently approach the capital markets to fund their respective business plans."