Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy court on December 9th heard detailed evidence from one of its reconstruction financial advisors. This was Day 4 of a probable 10-day legal process to see Intelsat’s exit from bankruptcy approved. However, the expert was challenged as to whether he had examined alternate methods to exit bankruptcy. Also, on December 9th, […]
Tim Farrar of TMF Associates says the recent “breathless” valuations for SpaceX (ranging from between $80 billion to $100 billion) are inconsistent. He says the quoted company valuations have near-tripled over the past year, and with SpaceX’s share price – albeit privately held – rising from about $200 per share to $560 over the same […]
Steve Spengler, Intelsat’s CEO, firmly denies being the conduit for any alleged insider trading information over the sale of Intelsat stock by certain shareholders and the company’s chairman Dave McGlade. It has been alleged that two major investors, and Intelsat’s chairman Dave McGlade, sold in total some $260 million (€230m) of Intelsat stock ahead of […]
Judge Keith L. Phillips opened the formal hearings into Intelsat’s Chapter 11 exit plan. The process is scheduled to last about 10 days. Around 216 lawyers and observers attended the Zoom meeting for sessions which were described as “complex”. The court was told that more than 90 percent of claimants against the various Intelsat entities […]
Investment bank Morgan Stanley says that its base case valuation for Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite low Earth orbiting constellation stands at $81 billion (€71.8bn). It backs up its thinking with assumptions of a longer-term 2040 position when the system can offer some 250 Gb/s per satellite of capacity of which 4.5 per cent is “saleable” […]
The very long-running dispute between India’s ISRO Antrix commercial division and a (then) satellite agreement with Devas Multimedia, commenced in 2005, continues to very slowly process through various courts and administrations. In essence, Devas has been awarded $1.2 billion, plus interest, in compensation by an international tribunal. The latest chapter saw Antrix saying in a […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team postponed the planned December 1st launch of another batch of Starlink satellites for 24-hours until around 6pm (Florida time) on December 2nd. However, Musk was again Tweeting over his concerns about raising more capital and the potential risk of failure. “If a severe global recession were to dry up capital availability […]
A timely note to clients from investment bank BNPP/Exane looks at the potential media-related winners and losers impacted by the latest Covid variant. The bank says that while there are justifiable fears from the new variant, there will inevitably be media businesses that are impacted, some with good news, and others not so likely to […]
Disney+ has passed 100 million US subs. The gamble of going direct, cutting out the service provider middlemen, has paid off. Among its objectives now must be to make inroads internationally into the lead held by Netflix, the pioneer of D2C. The weapons in this war of attrition are: pricing, marketing and content. Disney doesn’t […]
India’s Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service is not licensed by India and the public should not subscribe to services. Local media says that Starlink Internet Services are already being advertised in the country. The DoT has also asked Starlink to comply with India’s regulatory framework for offering satellite-based […]