Confirmed: ABS up for sale
June 1, 2016
By Chris Forrester
Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) is up for sale by its owners, private equity investor Permira.
CEO Tom Choi told delegates at Casbaa in Singapore that Permira had started a process to source a buyer and in order to close a particular fund that Permira had used to acquire ABS. ABS bought ABS in 2010 for around $242 million.
Then the fleet was a modest collection of mostly older satellites. Now the operation, which is formally headquartered in Bermuda but has its main operation in the Philippines, has reportedly 348 transponders on a total of 6 satellites, and with another due for launch in the next two weeks.
“We are owned by a financial sponsor. They have been a very good partner for our company,” Choi told delegates. “They came in after we had acquired in-orbit satellite capacity from other satellite operators. We had grand ambitions for new satellites. They put in a big chunk of new equity, which gave us the financing to build the ABS-2, ABS-2A and ABS-3A satellites.”