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Intelsat In Play

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Loral Space & Communications is joining an auction to bid for the world’s largest commercial satellite operator, Intelsat, the Wall Street Journal said on Friday.

Intelsat is a Bermuda company formed at the direction of funds advised by or associated with Apax Partners, Apollo Management, Madison Dearborn Partners and Permira Advisers.

The news comes a day after the Journal reported that Liberty Media and EchoStar were planning a joint bid for Intelsat. The sale of Intelsat could draw bids from $4.5 billion to more than $5.5 billion, says The Journal. Liberty Media, owned by media mogul Darth Vader (see DailyWireless: John Malone in Space), is expected to close another deal, taking over DirecTV by the end of the year.

Analysts have said investors could be interested in the commercial satellite sector because of its growth potential as television programmers demand more satellite capacity for the delivery of high definition TV programs to cable operators.

Meanwhile, SES Global announced 10 satellite launch contracts for 2009-2013. These “multi-launch agreements” ensure that each SES satellite will have a primary as well as a back-up launch vehicle, each with two launch slots. They signed separate agreements with launch industry leaders Arianespace and International Launch Services for 5 satellite launches each.

Arianespace will provide Ariane 5 or Soyuz boosters to be launched out of the European Space Port in Kourou (French Guyana) while ILS will provide Proton Breeze M boosters launching from the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It represent the largest single launch services contract to date both for Arianespace and ILS.

Intelsat merged with competitor PanAmSat last year to become the world’s largest satellite communications provider. SES Global, a Luxembourg-based corporation, is the 2nd largest, while Eutelsat, the third largest satellite operator with 23 satellites, covers the entire European continent, as well as the Middle East, Africa, India and significant parts of Asia and the Americas.

Lockheed Martin owns a 24 percent stake in Intelsat, which is incorporated in Bermuda but is headquartered in Washington, D.C. PanAmSat earlier sold out to affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, The Carlyle Group and Providence Equity Partners, for approximately $2.6 billion, which they later flipped for about $3B on the sale to Intelsat. SES Global was born out of the combination of ASTRA, Europe’s leading provider of satellite capacity for direct-to-home reception, and US-based AMERICOM.

In other news, two top secret NRO ocean surveillance spacecraft were fired into the wrong orbit June 15 when the 200-foot-tall Atlas V rocket they were riding on stopped firing too early in space following launch from Cape Canaveral, says Aviation Week’s Craig Covault. The two spacecraft are critical to tracking ships that may conceal al Qaeda terrorists. The new spacecraft will also track Iranian and Chinese sea-based military operations.

DailyWireless has more on Satellites and Space including; WildBlue Partners with DirecTV & Echostar, John Malone in Space, TerreStar Gets a Slot, BSkyB + Google, SkyNet Satellite Hacked?, Lockheed CEO: Space is Broken, Proxim + Gilat Satellite, Be Your Own TV Network, Middle East Telecom, Eutelsat HotBird 8, Connexion On Again?, Plan B from WirelessDBS, MSS: AWS Alternative?, WildBlue: AT&T’s DeathStar?, Global Satellite Providers Now Three, Inmarsat F2 Launched, Intelsat & Panamsat to Merge, Biggest Spotbeam Sat Launched, Intelsat Spotbeam Launched, Murdoch: Bang…Zoom!, Antennas In Space, Satellite Jam, Pacific Satellites Fail, and China/US Space News.