Optus Satellite is up for sale. Owned by Singapore Telecom, the telco is reportedly looking for around $1.9 billion for its satellite assets. Optus has an EBITDA income of some $210 million last year. Optus supplies TV, telephony and broadband services to Australia and New Zealand.

First Round bids are due to be submitted on June 14th and reportedly there’s no shortage of parties interested in the assets. Eutelsat of Paris is said to be one such player, but others include private equity investors KKR, Carlyle Group, Blackstone Grp and Providence Equity Partners.

Optus Satellite operates a fleet of five satellites, with another, Optus 10, scheduled for launch this year. SingTel, which acquired the satellite arm when it bought Optus in 2001 for $14 billion, has been struggling to increase its earnings because of slowing growth in Singaporean and Australian mobile phone subscriptions and problems at Indian associate Bharti Airtel .

Categories: Articles, Business, DTH/Satellite, M&A