AST SpaceMobile will pay around $550 million (€474.9m) to Ligado for its L-band spectrum over North America. The news was confirmed late on June 13th. The payment will allow Ligado itself to pay the $535 million it owes to Viasat/Inmarsat. The Viasat payment will then see the end of its objections it has over Ligado’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy reconstruction. Ligado’s broader restructuring plan calls for converting $7.8 billion in debt to equity, reducing its future debt to around $1.2 billion.
Ligado’s bankruptcy court has to approve the plan (expected this month) but this is seen as a formality. Ligado would then be obligated to begin making quarterly payments to Inmarsat of around $16 million from September 30th for the radio spectrum, which sits adjacent to Ligado’s spectrum to form a contiguous area of L-band over North America.
A Ligado spokesperson said the company plans to seek bankruptcy court approval for the AST SpaceMobile agreement later this month, targeting confirmation of the restructuring plan in early August.
Combined with cellular spectrum from partners AT&T and Verizon, AST SpaceMobile said the frequencies would support broadband speeds of up to 120 megabits/second for unmodified smartphones beyond the reach of terrestrial networks across the US. In addition, Inmarsat agrees to provide its affirmative support of AST SpaceMobile’s planned regulatory applications with the FCC in the US and ISED in Canada seeking authority to operate a Non-GSO system within the L-Band mid-band spectrum in North America.
Mark Dankberg, Viasat chair and CEO, said, settling Inmarsat’s long-running dispute with Ligado not only improves Viasat’s balance sheet by helping pay down some of its $5.6 billion in net debt, but also reinforces its positioning in the evolving MSS ecosystem.
“We saw the opportunity of a favorable outcome when completing the Inmarsat acquisition in 2023, and not only anticipated the potential of utilising the cash proceeds from such an agreement to repay debt, which will soon further strengthen our capital position, but to also advance our growth strategy. To that end, we look forward to continuing our activities with the MSSA to ensure an open architecture, standards based multi-orbit approach to MSS based on continued cooperation mechanisms among MSS operators,” Dankberg said.
Advanced Television