Due to the delays in Ariane's schedules, resulting from several malfunctions that cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars each, the launch of the Amos 2 satellite will be delayed; Another delay will be caused by the fact that the French gave priority to launching another satellite
About three and a half weeks ago, Halal announced that the Ariane company, which is responsible for launching the Amos 2 satellite, may postpone the launch to early 2004. The launch was supposed to take place in July 2003. The reason for the possible postponement is Ariane's claim that another satellite has precedence over Amos 2.
Due to this postponement, the approval of the two financing banks is now required for the upcoming interest payment to the holders of its bonds (series A), an interest payment of approximately 5.58% which is to be made at the end of June 2003. And this, after the financing banks - Bank Leumi and Bank Hapoalim , have not yet given the company their approval to make the payment to the bondholders. The approval of the two banks is required after they informed the space that it violated its commitment to them. IAI owns approximately 24.3% of the share capital of Halal.
IAI, which serves as a supplier to the satellite company, recently sent a series of letters to YES claiming that the company is violating the existing agreements between them. The Aerospace Industry threatens to stop on May 25, this coming Sunday, the supply of transmission segments to YES from the Amos 1 satellite. This is according to the reports of the parent company Bezeq which were published on Friday, 23/5/2003.
YES rejects the claims regarding the content of the agreements between it and Israel Aerospace Industries and Space Company, and disavows Israel Aerospace Industries' right to stop providing the broadcast segments.
The two companies have been in talks for several months to settle debts amounting to tens of millions of shekels and are trying to forge an understanding between them. The scope of Yes's current payments to its suppliers every month is estimated at approximately NIS 80 million. Sources at YES claim that negotiations are underway to resolve the debt problem and believe that it will be settled in the coming days.
The Amos 1 satellite was launched in May 1996 for the Aerospace Industry and the space company received exclusivity on the marketing of the services. The Amos 2 satellite, which may be launched into space in the coming months, will be exclusive to space, after the company purchased Amos 2 from IAI in September 2000 for $130 million.
We recently reported that YES is making improvements to the compression capacity of the Amos 1 satellite segments, so that now each channel can transmit about 60% more traffic. To this end, YES purchased compression equipment from the Harmonic company with an investment of approximately 6 million dollars. YES recently decided to continue leasing 10 transmission segments on the Amos 1 satellite, at the same time as a future lease of about 4 segments on the Amos 2 satellite. The satellite company's debt to the space company amounts to approximately NIS 6.6 million.
In the coming days a decision will be made regarding the launch of the Amos 2 satellite
18/5/2003
In the coming days, a decision may be made not to postpone the launch of the Amos 2 satellite, according to senior officials, who claim that indications have arrived and oral messages have been given that reinforce the assessment that Amos 2 will be launched in the coming months.
Originally, the Amos 2 satellite was supposed to be launched this July. The HLL Communications company informed the stock market a few weeks ago that the launch may be postponed to the beginning of 2004, after receiving a notification from the Israel Aerospace Industries, that the Ariane company, which is responsible for launching the satellite, may postpone the launch to the beginning of 2004.
It was also learned that the fear that the broadcasts distributed via the LMI1 satellite would stop has been removed. Enter into an agreement with the LMI company to lease three channels on the LMI1 satellite for the purpose of distributing channel 1, channel 2 and channel 33 broadcasts until the launch of Amos 2.
On March 25 of this year, it received a message from Intersputnik, in the name of LMI, that the LMI1 satellite would be sold to Arabsat and the broadcasts distributed through LMI1 would stop.
