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To: djane who wrote (3224)	3/1/1999 9:51:00 PM
From: Valueman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

Monday March 1, 8:57 pm Eastern Time Iridium sees quarterly results below expectations NEW YORK, March 1 (Reuters) - Iridium World Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq:IRIDF - news), the world's first global satellite phone and paging company, said Monday its first-quarter results would fail to meet expectations because of delays in launching its service. Iridium said in a statement the lower forecast would likely oblige it to talk with lenders about changing its subscriber and revenue targets. The statement followed an earlier announcement about fewer subscribers than expected and the risk of defaulting on some covenants of a secured bank facility. Iridium, which has a network of 66 satellites that enable calls to be made anywhere in the world, did not elaborate, and its officials were not available for comment. First Call Corp. had compiled a consensus forecast of an operating loss of $3.16 per diluted share for the quarter from analysts who follow the company. The figure was worse than the loss of $1.45 reported for the same period a year ago. ''It is important to note that the causes of the delays in Iridium's subscriber ramp-up have not been associated with the level of market demand for our product, which we believe to be strong, but rather with distribution problems such as shortages of phones, pagers and fully trained sales channels,'' read the statement from Iridium. ''This is not an indication of how Iridium will fare in the months ahead, nor does it affect the company's ability to meet its debt payment obligations,'' it added. Iridium, which began commercial operation of the network in November, said the lenders with whom it would have to talk about modifying its targets were involved in an $800 million senior secured credit agreement. Earlier in the day, Standard & Poor's cut a series of debt ratings on the company in light of the earlier warnings. ''Subscriber demand has not materialized as expected due to slow production and distribution of phones by suppliers and poor marketing efforts by Iridium's regional providers,'' it said in a statement. Iridium, which had about 3,000 subscribers at the end of 1998, had some $2.8 billion in debt outstanding, it said. Last month, Iridium Chief Executive Officer Ed Staiano said he expected to sign up hundreds of thousands of customers by the end of the year.