EchoStar Enters Bid For Loral’s North American Assets

EchoStar Communications [Nasdaq: DISH] made a $1.029 billion offer Wednesday aimed at competing with Intelsat Ltd. for the purchase of Loral’s North American satellite assets.

EchoStar also remains interested in buying all of Loral’s assets, including its low-margin satellite manufacturing business. However, EchoStar officials declined to discuss the company’s strategy or what it would do with either the North American satellites or the rest of Loral.

The EchoStar bid filed Wednesday is exclusively for Loral’s fleet of six North American orbital slots and satellites, including the Telstar 13/EchoStar 9 spacecraft launched in August. That satellite, shared between Loral and EchoStar, is operated at 121 degrees W. EchoStar has Ka-band capacity aboard the satellite that could be used to provide high- speed Internet services to much of North America.

The bankruptcy court auction for Loral’s North American satellites will begin Monday, Oct. 20.

For more about EchoStar’s efforts to buy Loral assets, see the Oct. 20 issue of SATELLITE NEWS. For info on subscribing to PBI Media’s newsletters, check out our Web site at https://www.satellitetoday.com.