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

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (6030)	5/5/1999 5:22:00 PM
From: RMiethe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10852

I agree with Rocket Scientist. Let's see what happens with Liberty Media and NewsCorp over the next 30 days, as poster Valueman (the CFO of Loral)has so carefully detailed for us. Also, the Lockheed Martin shares of Loral has been an overhang for some 8 months now, and is soon to be sold to another party friendly to Loral in a strategic sense. The Lockheed purchase of Comsat is the cause of the pending sale of Loral preferred. Developments underway in Latin America include a new SatMex GEOsat to be built. The Solidaridad 1 GEOsat is shifting cutomers to SatMex V, and is probably coming to the end of its dependability and usefulness. For Loral, it is good that only a small revenue stream in SatMex comes from Solidaridad 1. I am informed that the Mexican government owns seven of the transponders free, and the C band service is not that lucrative. The new SatMex GEOsat could be complemented, for example, by a GEOsat from, among others, Hispasat (they use little space on their GEOsats), or some Intelsat GEOsats. That's the value of "neighborhooding". A report I am looking at indicates Telstar 8 is for launch in q 1 in FY 2000, EuropeStar in 2nd qrtr FY 2000 (Alcatel is handling the launch), with Telstar 7 most likely launching off the dependable Ariane vehicle, and Orion 2 to be launched into the skies by September of this year. Eutelsat, it appears, is not launching into the contested slot that has made so much hoo-ha in some of the Wall Street reports. Then again you have to start looking at the formation of Skybridge. They need some $1 billion for the space segment construction (excludes gateways, I am informed), and in a report I am reading on Skybridge they appear dead set on an early FY 2001 roll out. With a new launch pad being built down in Guyana (owned in part by Mitsubishi, it looks) Skybridge should be able to get a number of launches off fairly easily. Originally I thought this would be quite an undertaking, but it appears that I am wrong. Loral owns 20% of Skybridge. Globalstar is on the plate next year also, and CD Radio, another Loral interest, starts some time late next year or early (very early FY 2001). So, we are halfway through FY 1999 almost, and the market will soon start discounting the earnings stream for next year. From what I am reading, FY 2000 does appear to be a very busy year ahead for Loral. That is why I agree with Rocket Scientist about the near-term price of Loral to break 20. Anyone who read the LOR financial report today will have to conclude that LOR is starting to get its financial structure under good control, moving ahead with revenue growth, and gathering more and more clients for its services. Once we get Globalstar subscription indications in q 3, 4 we should see Loral pick up sharply.