Telesat’s Allan Park teleport location, outside of Toronto. Photo: Telesat

Telesat is now a public company, which the Canadian operator says will bring investment opportunities for its planned broadband constellation Lightspeed. Friday marked the completion of a deal first announced in November 2020, and one that was long anticipated. 

Telesat will begin trading on the Nasdaq and Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TSAT”. 

The company closed a transaction with co-owners Loral Space & Communications and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), in which Loral’s stockholders and Telesat Canada’s other equity holders exchanged their interests for equity in Telesat’s new public holding structure. Telesat did not issue new equity to raise additional cash financing as part of the transaction. 

In total, Telesat Corporation and Telesat Partnership are expected to have 49,546,940 shares and units outstanding, of which a total of 11,907,246 Class A common shares and Class B variable voting shares of Telesat Corporation will be outstanding initially. 

Telesat Canada and Loral are now subsidiaries of Telesat Corporation, which will continue to be led by Telesat’s President and CEO Dan Goldberg.

“Today’s announcement marks a major milestone for Telesat, driving forward our plans for growth, innovation and increased value for our customers, partners, employees and shareholders,” said Goldberg. “By rationalizing our corporate structure and providing access to the public equity markets, this dual-listing enhances Telesat’s ability to execute on its compelling investment opportunities to drive our growth — and the future of global broadband connectivity — including our transformative Telesat Lightspeed Low Earth Orbit satellite network.”

Telesat is in the process of building its LEO constellation Lightspeed and has entered a number of funding agreements over the past year for the project. In August, the government of Canada agreed to invest an additional $1.44 billion Canadian dollars into the constellation if the operator meets capital and operating expenditures requirements.