It was a grim-faced panel of satellite manufacturing executives that faced delegates during the “Satellite Manufacturing: Building Confidence with ‘Basics'” session on March 24th.

“I have heard talk that everyone here is making money,” quipped Ted Gavrilis, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Systems.

“If anyone on this panel is making money, they must be printing money!” added Com Dev CEO John Keating. “It is said that the Chinese expression, ‘May you live in interesting times,’ is a curse. Well, we live in interesting times.”

The impact of private equity ownership of FSS companies piqued Gavrilis’ attention in particular. He expects these money-minded newcomers to look at the unused 2500 C- and Ku- band transponders currently in orbit and “rationalize” them, find ways to assign new clients to these unused channels before spending money on new spacecraft to offset future growth.

Ted Gavrilis is not alone in this belief: other speakers at SATELLITE 2005-such as Dr. Gregory Clark, principal of Clark Capital Partners of New York-are expecting private equity-owned Fixed Satellite Services companies to cut costs wherever possible, by only purchasing replacement satellites as needed and eliminating research end development budgets. “There will be no risk money available from the PE firms to invest in new projects,” said Dr. Clark during a question-and-answer period on March 23. As a result, “The brightest people will not go into the satellite manufacturing industry. Maybe they will go into private equity.”

For more coverage of SATELLITE 2005, please see the March 28 and April 4 issues of Satellite News. For more information on subscribing to Access Intelligence’s satellite industry news and information products, visit us on the Web at https://www.satellitetoday.com.