Chris Forrester is one of the most experienced and highly regarded journalists in the field. His insight and analysis, particularly in the satellite and pay-TV arena, is highly prized. He has written for all the major business journals in the sector as well as several national newspapers.
It has long been a complaint from SES that Intelsat, in its complex Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is using associate and sister businesses to shift incoming cash (and in particular the so-called incentive payments from the FCC over the C-band reallocation of spectrum). SES describes the Intelsat action as playing a “shell game” and that Intelsat […]
The judge in Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy has already overruled the US Trustee’s strongly voiced objections to the future hearings in the Intelsat case being heard in private (‘under seal’) and not open to the public or other interested parties. The Trustee, in a formal motion to the court on August 30th, again mounted a […]
On September 1st the Intelsat bankruptcy court is scheduled to hold a pre-trial hearing on the SES claim for a greater share of the FCC’s incentive payments due from the C-band clearing process and auction. SES, in a filing to the court on August 25th, is asking that the actual trial scheduled for September 20th […]
There are many pages of potential problems to be overcome by Intelsat as it proceeds towards its proposed Exit Plan from bankruptcy under its Amended Plan. But two Luxembourg entities figure largely in the 607-page filing to its US bankruptcy court on August 24th. The first is Intelsat arch-rival SES, very much based in Luxembourg, […]
Following the announcement of its merger with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) in the form of NextGen Acquisition Corp, Virgin Orbit now says it wants its own in-orbit satellite system. Backed by Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Orbit wants to transition from launching small satellites to building its own satellite constellation for Internet-of-Things (IoT) and […]
Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit satellite launch system (and not to be confused with his Virgin Galactic passenger tourism venture) is set to go public with a NASDAQ quote. The company says its revenues will grow 100-fold by 2025 to $1.55 billion. Virgin Orbit has merged with one of the increasingly fashionable Special Purpose Acquisitions […]
Space is an increasingly crowded place and in the first 6 months of the year (to May 31st) SpaceX says it has had to carry out 2219 collision avoidance manoeuvres for its orbiting Starlink fleet. This aerial ballet of ever-moving satellites comes from data supplied by the US Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron. As […]
SES CEO Steve Collar, SES’s CEO in an interview on the topic of satellite industry merger activity, admitted that he was sure that “everyone’s talking to everyone”. Collar added, in the interview carried by Bloomberg, that because Space is “essentially a fixed-cost industry, so the scale that’s generated from consolidation can be important financially. And […]
The August 19th application by Intelsat and SES to have much of their court arguments heard privately was granted by Intelsat’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy Judge. Despite a strong case submitted by the US Trustee, who argued that the two litigants were seeking to close the courthouse door during their submissions and that the public had […]
August 19th is a busy day for Judge Keith Phillips in his bankruptcy court. A morning session has listed eight motions related to the sealing of sessions (that is holding hearings in complete privacy). Other elements to be decided include SES’s application for Summary Judgement in its $1.8 billion claim against Intelsat. However, the United […]
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