Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) is up for sale by its owners, private equity investor Permira.

CEO Tom Choi told delegates at Casbaa in Singapore that Permira had started a process to source a buyer and in order to close a particular fund that Permira had used to acquire ABS. ABS bought ABS in 2010 for around $242 million.

Then the fleet was a modest collection of mostly older satellites. Now the operation, which is formally headquartered in Bermuda but has its main operation in the Philippines, has reportedly 348 transponders on a total of 6 satellites, and with another due for launch in the next two weeks.

“We are owned by a financial sponsor. They have been a very good partner for our company,” Choi told delegates. “They came in after we had acquired in-orbit satellite capacity from other satellite operators. We had grand ambitions for new satellites. They put in a big chunk of new equity, which gave us the financing to build the ABS-2, ABS-2A and ABS-3A satellites.”

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Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Business, DTH/Satellite, M&A