[05-20-11] Asia Broadcast Satellite<\/b> (ABS) has reached another important milestone having secured another $215 million in financing that will fund most of its capital expenditure plans in the short- to medium-term. ABS announced the deal earlier this week. It closed a $215 million five-year senior bank loan from a financial consortium comprising Goldman Sachs<\/b>, HSBC<\/b>, ING<\/b>, Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 G\u00e9n\u00e9rale<\/b> and Standard Chartered Bank<\/b>.
\n The ABS story has been going along at breakneck speed, with the company acquiring a number of satellites during the last 2-3 years, as well as seeing a change of ownership. Last November, the operator announced that Ace Investments 1<\/b>, a company advised by the Permira<\/b> funds, along with the ABS management team had completed the acquisition of Kingsbridge Limited<\/b>, the holding company for ABS. Permira, a major European private equity company, once again decided to invest in the satellite sector.
\n Tom Choi, ABS CEO hailed this latest milestone for the company. He told Satellite News<\/i>, \u201cThis new financing exemplifies endorsement of ABS\u2019s successful track record, current performance and growth potential. The financing will allow us to fund ABS\u2019s capex programs and sets another milestone in ABS\u2019s short yet successful history. Permira has been important in the process, and its presence further confirms the banks\u2019 confidence in ABS\u2019s future.\u201d
\n With this financing in place, the operator could look to acquire further satellites. \u201cWe will continue to expand our fleet. Depending on strategic fit and financial implications, the expansion will be done either through building new satellites or acquiring existing satellites,\u201d Choi says.
\n In terms of whether it might need further financing in the near future, Choi adds, \u201cABS will continue to explore different growth opportunities and will consider different financing options to fund the opportunities, if necessary. In addition, we will continue to seek ways of improving our capital structure.\u201d
\nThe operator is set for a busy two years as it gears up towards the launch of its ABS-2 satellite. The satellite will be launched at 75 degrees East in 2013. ABS-2 will really be the centerpiece satellite for ABS satellite fleet going forward. Space Systems\/Loral<\/b> (SS\/L) won the contract to build the satellite late last year. ABS-2 will have more than 12 kW of payload power and up to a total of 87 active C-band, Ku-band and Ka-band transponders across 10 different beams bringing increased capacity and transmission power to the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific and CIS\/Russia. The ABS-2 spacecraft is based on Space Systems\/Loral\u2019s 1300 satellite bus, with a separated mass in excess of 6,000 Kg at launch and is designed for 15 years of operational life.
\nChoi is optimistic that the operator can sell the majority of the capacity on this satellite before launch. \u201cDemand has been strong and we have signed up a significant contract backlog already. We are targeting at least 80 percent fill rate at the time of launch,\u201d he says.
\n Whether it will look to commission another satellite as big as ABS-2 in the near future remains to be seen. On this issue, Choi says, \u201cWe always look for different options in expanding our fleet. We have not decided whether we will or will not commission another large satellite over the next 12-month period.\u201d
\n Choi believes the operator is in a good position to grow the business going forward. \u201cThe economic downturn has had no significant impact to our business; our average utilization remained at a high level in the last few years. ABS has recorded an impressive growth over the last four years. Maintaining the same growth momentum is going to be a key challenge for the company over the next 12 months. High growth markets such as Africa, Middle East, South East Asia and CIS remain to be ABS\u2019 focus.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[05-20-11] Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) has reached another important milestone having secured another $215 million in financing that will fund most of its capital expenditure plans in the short- to medium-term. ABS announced the deal earlier this week. It closed a $215 million five-year senior bank loan from a financial consortium comprising Goldman Sachs, HSBC, […]<\/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-84815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84815"}],"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=84815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}