Fresh from halving its stake in one European satellite operator, Spanish infrastructure group abertis has significantly increased its holding in another. The company has purchased telecoms operator Telefonica’s 13.23% stake in Hispasat for…
Fresh from halving its stake in one European satellite operator, Spanish infrastructure group abertis has significantly increased its holding in another. The company has purchased telecoms operator Telefonica’s 13.23% stake in Hispasat for approximately €124m in cash.
The deal, which still has to be approved by the Consejo de Ministros, the Spanish cabinet, will see abertis hold a direct stake of 46.6% in the Spanish satellite operator.
abertis stated that the value of the transaction implied an enterprise value/EBITDA 2012 ratio of 7.8 times and would generate an estimate internal rate of return of 13%
The move comes just over a month after abertis sold a 16% stake in Eutelsat for approximately €981m in an accelerated share placement.
The infrastructure investor retains a 15.35% holding in Eutelsat, which is subject to a six-month lock-up. abertis is yet to decide whether to exit the satellite operator completely at the end of the lock-up period.
Following that transaction, an abertis spokesperson told SatelliteFinance that company has been actively looking to increase its ownership of Hispasat.
The Spanish satellite operator has seen strong growth over the past few years on the back of its strategy of further expanding its presence in the burgeoning Latin American market. In its year-end 2010 results, the last available, Hispasat reported a year-on-year increase in consolidated revenues of more than 20% to €181.5m, with overseas markets accounting for over 44% of this.
The next satellite to tap South America is Amazonas-3 which is due to be launched by Arianespace in 2013 and will be located at the 61W orbital slot where Amazonas 1 and 2 are currently based. The spacecraft is currently being built by Space Systems Loral and will have 52 simultaneous transponders, 33 Ku- and 19 C-band, in addition to 9 Ka-band spot beams, which Hispasat claims will make it the first Ka-band satellite supplied in Latin America.
To finance the new bird, Hispasat secured a US$228m 8.6-year loan with JP Morgan back in August 2011. The debt has been guaranteed by the US Export-Import Bank.
