Intelsat Tops EchoStar Bid for Loral’s North American Assets

Intelsat has topped the bid of EchoStar Communications [Nasdaq: DISH] for the North American satellites of Loral Space & Communications [OTCBB: LRLSQ]. Loral announced Monday that Intelsat had upped its offer to $1.1 billion, making it the high bid in the bankruptcy auction for Loral’s North American satellites and orbital slots. EchoStarchose not to boost its previous bid of $1.029 billion. The asset sale still must be approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. Loral will recommend the Intelsat bid to the judge Wednesday during a hearing scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.

Separately, EchoStar raised its bid from $100 million to $200 million for the DirecTV 7S satellite ordered by DirecTV from Loral Space & Communications’ [OTCBB: LRLSQ] satellite manufacturing unit.

The matter is scheduled to be taken up Tuesday afternoon by the bankruptcy court. DirecTV is counting on the delivery of the DirecTV 7S satellite by year-end to help it expand its service of local signals to dozens of markets across the country.

For more on this story, see the Oct. 27 issue of SATELLITE NEWS. For more info on subscribing to PBI Media’s satellite newsletters, check out our Web site at https://www.satellitetoday.com