[Satellite TODAY Insider 12-27-10] Inmarsat secured $666 million in U.S. Export-Import (Ex-Im) Bank loans to finance the construction and insurance of three Ka-band satellites for its Global Xpress service, the mobile satellite operator announced Dec. 22.
    Global Xpress aims to supplement military capacity on the Boeing’s Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) fleet. Three WGS satellites are in orbit, with three more scheduled for launch by late 2012. Inmarsat CEO Andy Sukawaty told Satellite TODAY Insider that the company sees GlobalXpress as a continued effort to build on to its acquisition of Segovia in May and branch out from the enterprise sector to government and military services.
    “While GlobalXpress will cater to a wide variety of customers, we actually made the decision that we wanted to expand our focus in defense about three to four years ago. We put more resources into the idea and started looking at potential acquisitions. With managed services playing a bigger role in our business, it was natural for us to look at acquiring a company like Segovia, which we did last May.  Initially, Segovia was not on our radar. The way it came on the radar, is that Segovia kicked off a process of either partnering with a bigger company or selling the business,” Sukawaty said.
    One of the Global Xpress satellites will be built by Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems and will carry a hosted payload for U.S. Department of Defense customers. In November, Inmarsat President of Global Government Services Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch told Satellite TODAY Insider that the company is negotiating the service’s hosted-payload lease structure with the Pentagon.
    “For the military, discussions are beginning, and at the operation level there is significant receptiveness. At the policy level, there is conceptual receptiveness. The most difficult challenge is the program level, and there has not been as much traction, yet, but we’re getting there and making progress. As with all commercial communications and technology discussions with the military, these things take time,” Hirsch said.
    The Ex-Im bank has made several satellite financing deals in 2010. The bank’s loans include: a $125 million to U.K. operator Avanti Communications to support a broadband-data satellite under construction by Orbital Sciences; $175 million to help finance Space Systems/Loral’s construction of the Hispasat 1E satellite; a $171.5 million loan to SES to build the QuetzSat satellite covering North America; and a $228 million loan to Hispasat for the Amazonas-3 telecommunications satellite.

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