September 2010
A monthly round-up of space industry developments for the information of our clients and friends. Intelsat Prices Tender Offer of Notes at $1b Permira Funds Invest in ABS On September 16, Intelsat S.A. announced Asia Broadcast Satellite Holdings Ltd. that its subsidiary, Intelsat Jackson (ABS) announced on September 13 that it Holdings S.A., priced $1b aggregate has reached an agreement with a company principal amount of 7¼% senior notes due backed by the Permira funds to acquire 2020 at an issue price of 100%. A portion of Kingsbridge Limited, the holding company the net proceeds of the notes are expected to of ABS. The Permira funds will become the be contributed or loaned to Intelsat majority shareholder of ABS. The acquisition Corporation, Intelsat Jackson’s indirect of ABS is entirely equity funded. subsidiary, to be used to purchase Intelsat New Satellite Orders Corp’s outstanding $658.1m aggregate Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. principal amount of 9¼% senior notes due announced on August 30 that it will build 2014 and Intelsat Corp’s outstanding $125m WorldView-3, the next generation aggregate principal amount of 6⅞% senior commercial remote-sensing satellite, for secured debentures due 2028. The DigitalGlobe, Inc. ITT Corporation will remainder of the net proceeds from the supply the high-resolution imaging payload offering are expected to be used for general for the satellite, which is expected to be corporate purposes, including the repayment launched in 2014. On September 22, Thales or repurchase of other indebtedness of Alenia Space announced tri-partite contracts Intelsat S.A. or its subsidiaries. with RSCC (Russian Space Operator) and DigitalGlobe & GeoEye Financings JSC “ISS-Reshetnev Company” to DigitalGlobe, Inc. announced on September manufacture the Express AM8, AT1 and 15 the pricing of an underwritten secondary AT2 communications satellite payloads. The public offering of 6,000,877 shares, satellites will be based on the Express 1000 representing approximately 18% of its platform provided by JSC “ISS-Reshetnev common stock owned by certain of its Company”. Express AM8 will be equipped shareholders, including Morgan Stanley. The with 24 C-band, 16 Ku-band and 2 L-band public offering was priced at $30.25 per transponders providing coverage to Europe- share. Morgan Stanley granted the Africa, Europe-Asia, Africa and North and underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up South America from the 14°WL orbital
Space Business Review to an additional 900,000 shares of location. Express AT1 will carry 32 Ku-band DigitalGlobe’s common stock to cover transponders covering West and East Russia overallotments. Morgan Stanley and J.P. from the 56°EL orbital location, while Express Morgan are serving as joint book-running AT2 will be equipped with 16 Ku-band managers and Citi and Canaccord Genuity, transponders providing services to West Inc. are acting as co-managers on the Russia from the 36°EL orbital location. offering. On September 22, GeoEye, Inc. September Launch Orders announced that it completed the private On September 6, International Launch placement of 80,000 shares of its Series A Services (ILS) and SES announced the convertible preferred stock to Cerberus extension to December 31, 2014 of the SES Satellite LLC, an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Multi Launch Agreement (MLA), originally Management, L.P. Gross proceeds to signed in June 2007 between ILS and SES GeoEye from the private placement were Satellite Leasing Limited, and the addition $78m, which will be used for the development of a sixth firm ILS Proton mission through and launch of the GeoEye-2 satellite. 2014. Two of the four SES missions scheduled SpaceX and Astrium Bring Falcon 1 to Europe in 2011 and 2012 for the launches of the SES- Space Exploration Technologies Corp. 3, SES-4, QuetzSat-1 and SES-5/ASTRA 4B (SpaceX) and Astrium announced on satellites will be part of this MLA. On September 9 a commercial agreement to September 7, Lockheed Martin provide dedicated launch services to the Commercial Launch Services announced European institutional small satellite market. that it has been selected by GeoEye, Inc. to Astrium intends to work with SpaceX to launch GeoEye-2, the company’s next- market Falcon 1 launch capabilities to generation, high-resolution Earth-imaging satellite, on an Atlas V launcher in late BEIJING various space agencies and other institutional FRANKFURT customers in Europe for launches to take 2012. The launch will take place from HONG KONG place through 2015. Vandenberg Air Force Base. LONDON LOS ANGELES MUNICH To learn about Milbank’s Space Business Practice, or view previous issues of the Space Business Review, please visit www.milbank.com. NEW YORK The information contained herein is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. Recipients of this publication should not take or refrain from taking any action based upon content included herein. If you do not wish SÃO PAULO to receive this newsletter, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with the word “unsubscribe” in the subject line. ATTORNEY SINGAPORE ADVERTISING. Prior results do not guarantee similar results. TOKYO © 2010 - Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP. WASHINGTON DC