Speedcast in financial trouble?
April 6, 2020
By Chris Forrester
Australia-based satellite facilities company Speedcast International is reportedly having further financial challenges.
Speedcast let its CEO (P J Beylier) go in February after what the company admitted “had been a challenging year”. Listed – although currently suspended – on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), the company has been allowed to delay submitting its audited accounts for 2019 until April 30th as it continues to negotiate with its lenders and trade creditors for extra time.
The extra time (the Forbearance Agreement) runs until April 17th.
Last week the company revealed it had made an unaudited loss of $748 million during 2019 which included $414 million of write-downs, and is seeking a bridging loan of $180 million.
Current trading has not been helped by the current Virus uncertainty which sees Speedcast badly hit by the closedown of the cruise industry which was a major contributor to its revenues.
Speedcast informed the ASX that it currently has $669 million worth of debt as of December 31st and reported that total liabilities exceeded total assets by $202.7 million as of December 31st.
The company said: “There exists a material uncertainty that the group will be able to continue as a going concern”. This includes extra bridging finance to “allow Speedcast to continue operating and progress its re-capitalisation and restructuring to reduce the overall leverage of the company”.