{"id":82126,"date":"2012-11-09T22:48:46","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T14:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/african-new-dawn-investors-sell-joint-venture-share-back-to-intelsat\/"},"modified":"2012-11-09T22:48:46","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T14:48:46","slug":"african-new-dawn-investors-sell-joint-venture-share-back-to-intelsat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/african-new-dawn-investors-sell-joint-venture-share-back-to-intelsat\/","title":{"rendered":"African New Dawn Investors Sell Joint Venture Share Back to Intelsat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Satellite TODAY Insider 11-09-12] African communication industry firms <strong>Convergence Partners<\/strong>, <strong>Altirah Telecoms<\/strong> and a consortium of South African investors have sold the group\u2019s interest in the New Dawn to the project\u2019s initial majority shareholder, joint venture partner and FSS satellite operator <strong>Intelsat<\/strong>, Convergence Partners confirmed Nov. 9.<br \/>\n\tIntelsat is now the sole owner and operator of the satellite after buying Convergence Partners\u2019 25.1 percent stake in the project.<br \/>\n\tThe New Dawn joint venture was established in December 2008 with an aim to acquire, own and operate Intelsat\u2019s New Dawn satellite stationed at the 33 degrees East orbital slot. The satellite provides services in sub-Saharan Africa. &nbsp;Intelsat New Dawn completed construction in 2010 and was launched in 2011.&nbsp;<br \/>\nIntelsat launched commercial services on the operational Ku-Band payload this past June to supply critical communications infrastructure for African customers and support the continued development and growth of the region. The satellite also hosts the MCPC platform, which aims to address the growing digital television market in the region.<br \/>\n\tConvergence Partners Chairman Andile Ngcaba said that the partnership with Intelsat was created to enable the parties to achieve specific objectives, but added that a technical anomaly that occurred on the satellite preventing its reflectors from deploying properly precluded the group from fully realizing its broader objectives.<br \/>\n\t\u201cThe venture was a landmark deal for Africa and fundamentally changed the way Africans participate in this critical sector and, as such, remains something we are very proud of,\u201d Ngcaba said.<br \/>\n&nbsp;\tAccording to the partners, the $250 million Intelsat New Dawn project was funded through approximately 15 percent equity and 85 percent debt. African institutions provided around 90 percent of that funding, with Intelsat investing the remaining balance.<br \/>\n\tDespite setbacks, Ngcaba said he and fellow investors are still committed to African satellite and telecommunications development.<br \/>\n\t\u201cConvergence Partners maintains its long-term commitment to the African space communications sector and is creating further ventures in this regard, in order to assist in ensuring strong representation of Africans in all aspects of the industry,\u201d said Ngcaba. \u201cThe development of these opportunities meets the twin objectives of Convergence Partners, being the generation of attractive financial returns as well as acceleration of the socio-economic development of the continent.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Satellite TODAY Insider 11-09-12] African communication industry firms Convergence Partners, Altirah Telecoms and a consortium of South African investors have sold the group\u2019s interest in the New Dawn to the project\u2019s initial majority shareholder, joint venture partner and FSS satellite operator Intelsat, Convergence Partners confirmed Nov. 9. Intelsat is now the sole owner and operator [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}