Nascent Australian satellite operator NewSat has signed an agreement to acquire seven orbital slots to accommodate its future Jabiru satellites, including Jabiru-1. The spaces are currently licensed to AP Kypros Satellites. The agreement gives the…
Nascent Australian satellite operator NewSat has signed an agreement to acquire seven orbital slots to accommodate its future Jabiru satellites, including Jabiru-1. The spaces are currently licensed to AP Kypros Satellites.
The agreement gives the operator exclusive use of one slot, 50% of the frequencies of another two spaces and options over four others. Covering all continents, the slots are intended to enable NewSat to provide communications services in the C-, Ku- and Ka- bands. To pay for the spaces, NewSat will make five cash instalments and a sixth instalment in the form of ordinary shares on 1 December 2011.
The company, which did not respond to emails before the press deadline, said in a statement that further financial details about the agreement would be disclosed at a later point.
“The slots are extremely valuable assets with senior filing status, outstanding geographic footprint and certainly enough capacity to see NewSat’s long-term future assured. We are now in a position to launch multiple satellites, each of which could generate in excess of A$100m of EBITDA per year,” said NewSat CEO Adrian Ballintine in the statement.
In the same statement, the company explained that it has made significant progress on the Jabiru satellite project after selling capacity to customers and starting work on birds beyond Jabiru-1 and Jabiru-2. The company also said that it has substantially progressed on funding for Jabiru-1.
After failing to be part of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) in June last year, the company was forced to go down the export credit route for its debut satellite, expected at the time to cost in the region of A$400m.
Shortly afterwards, in July, NewSat hired Lazard and Argosat to advise it on securing ECA backed financing. It also formed a wholly-owned subsidiary, Jabiru Limited, to oversee the project with the aim of launching Jabiru-1 in 2013.
“Despite what NewSat can currently offer, both in capability and in significant cost savings, and with those services set to be enhanced even further by the Jabiru project, it is disappointing the Government’s NBN Co has not consulted with NewSat. Nevertheless NewSat will continue to push forward with our plans regardless,” the company wrote in an update to the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) in August last year.
According to local reports, the company later urged three independent MPs to oppose the NBN in its current form.
However in November, the Australian parliament approved the initial NBN plans, including the planned split of telecoms incumbent Telstra as well as the order of two Ka-band satellites for approximately A$1bn. NBN Company currently has an RfP out with potential satellite manufacturers and a decision over the prime vendor is expected imminently.
