While issuing the company’s latest results during an Aug. 4 press conference, Goldberg confirmed that the operator received offers from potential buyers and that discussions between interested parties and Telesat board members had taken place. While Goldberg declined to identify the bidders or confirm recent media reports that Echostar Corp. and Carlyle Group offered at least $6 billion for the acquisition, he did admit that the Telesat board eventually rejected the offers and terminated discussions.

    Telesat buyout rumors stemmed from a decision announced last year by Telesat majority owner Loral Space & Communications to explore selling all or part of its stake in the operator. In a separate statement, Loral said the company is now focusing on spinning off Loral satellite manufacturing subsidiary SS/L in light of the results of Telesat’s sell-off negotiations.

    When asked whether Telesat would seek an initial public offering, Goldberg said the operator’s more important focus rests on recapitalization. “As far as when we would come to a conclusion in terms of when we’re going to do that, it’s harder to say, so I’d rather not speculate about when we might complete that analysis,” he said.

    In its financial results for the three-month period ending June 30, Telesat reported a 2 percent decrease in consolidated revenues at $200 million, but revenues remained relatively unchanged compared with the same period in 2010 when adjusting for foreign exchange rate changes during the period. The operator’s adjusted EBITDA fell 1 percent to $155 million, which Telesat also blamed on the strength of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar. Telesat’s second-quarter operating income increased 2 percent to $95.6 million.

    Goldberg said Telesat is now preparing for the launch of its ViaSat-1 satellite in two months. Telesat purchased the Canadian coverage of the broadband satellite from Loral to provide rural broadband services to Barrett Xplore via the satellite’s antenna.

    “We successfully launched Telstar 14R in the quarter and, notwithstanding an anomaly in the deployment of one of its solar arrays, we currently expect the satellite will give us expansion capacity in the key Latin America and maritime markets to support our planned growth. At this time, we remained focused on the launch in a few months’ time of the ViaSat-1 satellite, as Telesat owns the satellite’s Canadian payload, and achieving our full-year financial and operational objectives,” said Goldberg.