spacetoday.net: Globalstar files for IPO

Posted: Thu, Jul 20, 2006, 10:04 AM ET (1404 GMT)
Globalstar satellite illustration

Mobile satellite communications company Globalstar, which went through bankruptcy protection earlier this decade, has announced plans to perform an initial public offering of stock. Globalstar said Tuesday the company hopes to raise $100 million in an IPO, although the company hasn't announced the price range for the stock, the number of shares to be sold, nor when the IPO will take place. Globalstar will use the money raised from the IPO, along with existing credit lines and other sources, to fund the development of a second-generation satellite system and upgrade its ground segment. Globalstar estimates that the next-generation satellite system will cost $1-1.2 billion. Globalstar deployed a constellation of over 50 low Earth orbit satellites in the late 1990s to provide global phone service, but the company, publicly-traded at the time, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection a few years later. The company has since emerged as a privately-held concern.