[Satellite Today 07-08-08] Mobile Satellite Ventures (MSV) reached an agreement with Boeing Satellite Systems Inc. to defer $40 million of payments on the construction of the MSV-2 satellite, MSV announced July 8.
    The $40 million deferral is in addition to the original construction payment deferral of $76 million. Deferred payments will be due by Dec. 20, 2010, or 10 days before shipment of the second MSV satellite, whichever is earlier. According to a July 7 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by SkyTerra Communications Inc., MSV was to have begun repaying the original $76 million construction deferrals within a month of reaching the maximum available amount of deferrals, estimated at the fourth quarter of 2008. The final payment of such original construction deferrals would have been due around the first quarter of 2010.
    In exchange for the granting the deferrals, Boeing will received warrants that can be converted into 626,000 shares of SkyTerra stock a price of $10 per share. SkyTerra now “has adequate sources of liquidity to meet its financial requirements into the second quarter of 2009,” the company said in the filing.
“This agreement comes at an important stage in the development of
MSV’s hybrid satellite-terrestrial network, providing us increased flexibility in our long-term financing plans,” Alexander Good, MSV’s CEO, president and vice chairman, said in a statement.
    MSV said the MSV-1 satellite remains on schedule for a 2009 fourth quarter launch. The delivery date for MSV-2 will be pushed back four months to July 2010, but the satellite is expected to be in orbit in the 2010 third quarter, MSV said.