This week, Satellite News is launching a new regular feature that looks at the performance of certain stocks in the satellite industry. The focus for the coming weeks will be on Panamsat Holdings Corp. The stock is important because it holds the distinction of being the first among the list of Fixed Satellite Services (FSS) companies recently purchased by private equity firms to launch an initial public offering of common stock. How well this stock does likely will influence decisions made on future IPOs by other private equity-owned FSS companies. This column also will highlight the performance of other stocks in the satellite industry to examine how well they are doing and whether the adage, “a rising tide raises all ships” applies to the new stocks on the market.

Panamsat, traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “PA,” has not taken off as many would have liked it to. The stock hit Wall Street with a price of $18 per share on March 17 and has yet to be traded at that price since. In fact, the stock’s price has been on a slow decline since the IPO. Up until this week, the stock had been trading between $17 and $18 per share, but on April 5, the stock closed dipped to $16.55 before closing the day at $16.98. The stock did see a slight boost on its last full day of trading before this issue went to press.

In the coming weeks, Panamsat could potentially see a boost in its stock price. The company is coming out of its “quiet period” next week, just in time for the National Association of Broadcasters annual conference in Las Vegas this week. With the quiet period over and a major convention as its backdrop, Panamsat will have the opportunity to tell its tale and maybe give investors a reason to boost the price of this IPO and provide some confidence to others seeking to test the IPO waters now.

XMSR

As a point of comparison, this week we are looking at XM Satellite Radio. The company released some good news on April 4 when it announced a record first quarter for net subscriber additions. The company added more than 540,000 subscribers, ahead of the consensus estimates of various Wall Street analysts, which had predicted net adds to be around 460,000 to 490,000. The stock price, however, did not see a significant bump with the good news, as the price continued to hover between $29 and $32 per share looking at the same period of time as the Panamsat IPO. In fact, the stock dipped slightly the day the first quarter subscriber figures were announced, but the slight fluctuations have been par for the course for this stock in recent weeks. At least two analysts set year-end price targets for this stock at above $40 per share, suggesting there is room for this stock to potentially grow throughout the next few months.