NewSat has said it is days away from raising A$10m in capital to help meet waiver conditions tied to the alleged breach of its Jabiru-1 project financing facilities.
The Australian satellite operator’s facility comprises A$6m of equity at 20 cents per…
NewSat has said it is days away from raising A$10m in capital to help meet waiver conditions tied to the alleged breach of its Jabiru-1 project financing facilities.
The Australian satellite operator’s facility comprises A$6m of equity at 20 cents per share, to be placed with a “recognised international bank”, and a A$4m mezzanine loan bearing 11% interest.
It said the loan is being placed with a NewSat director who, with share shareholder approval, can also convert it into equity at 20 cents a share.
The A$10m, or US$8.8m, is part of the US$40m that it needs to meet the waiver commitments.
NewSat said it will raise more money to meet that goal by 30 November, and that its lenders are comfortable with this approach.
The waiver was agreed after the group borrowed a US$10m unsecured short term loan in June from its shareholder Ever Tycoon. That allegedly breached covenants tied to its US$399m export credit agency-backed financing to build the Jabiru-1 satellite.
Ever Tycoon is a related party of NewSat director and shareholder Ching Chiat Kwong, and part of the new US$40m capital will go towards repaying all of that loan. The rest will be used to fund certain Jabiru-1 project accounts, and create a reserve to support the working capital of its teleport business.
The waiver also required NewSat to make corporate governance changes, which recently saw it appoint Linda Dillon as CFO and company secretary, and Fred Grimwade, Roderic Sage and Patrick McVeigh as new independent non-executive directors.
Jabiru-1 is being built by US-based Lockheed Martin and is due to be launched by France-based Arianespace next year.
“NewSat recently completed Preliminary Mission Analysis Review with Arianespace and Lockheed Martin at Arianespace’s headquarters in Evry-Courcouronnes, France and finalised the contracts for the ground antennas and associated electronic systems, flight dynamics system and capacity management system,” said the operator.