spacetoday.net: Globalstar files for bankruptcy protection

Posted: Sat, Feb 16, 2002, 9:56 AM ET (1456 GMT)
Globalstar satellite illustration

Satellite communications company Globalstar announced late Friday that it has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as part of a restructuring plan. In a press release issued after markets in the US closed Friday, the company said that it had reached agreements with its major creditors to restructure the company's debt, which will be accomplished through the bankruptcy filing. A new Globalstar company will be created using the assets of the existing Globalstar and three subsidiary service providers. Phone service using the company's constellation of satellites will continue without interruption through the reorganization. The new Globalstar is planning a new business model with "aggressively priced service" and use of a new section of 2 GHz radio spectrum recently licensed by the FCC for a potential second-generation system. The Chapter 11 filing was not unexpected, as the company warned three months earlier that such a filing was in the works. Many analysts thought the bankruptcy filing was inevitable much earlier, noting that the company stopped debt payments in January 2001.