>From Radiomagonline.com today comes this news, just as some of us predicted (anyone want to bid?):
World Space Up for Bid The world's first satellite radio firm, currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, will be sold to the highest bidder on Jan. 26. Washington, DC-based World Space is scheduled for a bankruptcy court-ordered auction just ahead of a key debtor-in-possession (DIP) loan due date on Jan. 29. World Space has been operating under debtor-in-possession provisions since last fall. Although it maintains some programming via a South Africa uplink, much of its operation has been curtailed and much of its former staff has since been laid off. >From a business standpoint, the auction couldn't come at a worse time. Both the U.S. and European Union are experiencing economic contraction and the commercial credit markets are extremely tight. Compounding the problem is the fact that satellite radio has yet to yield a profit. World Space maintains possession of its satellites and ground station assets, along with licenses for L-band spectrum in Italy and Germany. -- -Rob de Santos -----Original Message----- From: Rob de Santos [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, October 19, 2008 9:28 PM To: 'Shortwave programming discussion' Subject: Re: [Swprograms] Worldspace files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy I concur with you, John. Some of this was expected but they are in a desperate situation. Even if, by some miracle, they become significantly profitable, the debt situation and the nearly worthless stock mean they can only survive with either a huge cash infusion by some knight in "green" armor or by going the bankruptcy route and hoping to buy time. Sadly the huge money paid to talent plus the debt incurred by building and launching satellites meant they had a short window to become profitable. With the current bank situation they have seen that window begin to slam shut. So, if you have a few tens of millions (and that will be all it will take) you will be able to do what the current owners of Iridium did... buy the SiriusXM company in bankruptcy for a song and then make it profitable. Worldspace will come even cheaper. -- -Rob de Santos _______________________________________________ Swprograms mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe, or visit the URL shown above.
