Inmarsat (ISAT) has announced that "contesting shareholders" no longer intend to oppose its anticipated $3.4bn (£2.6bn) takeover by a private-equity consortium. This paves the way for the scheme pertaining to the deal to be sanctioned at a court hearing on 3 December.
The satellite communications group had been providing evidence to a law firm representing said shareholders. It revealed last week that the aforementioned court hearing for the acquisition – which was announced and recommended by Inmarsat’s board in March 2019 – had been rescheduled from 28 and 28 November to 3 and 4 December, in order to “accommodate pressure on the court listing schedule”.
The hearing had already been delayed from 12 November after Oaktree Capital Management – then a 2.85 per cent investor in Inmarsat – published a letter to the group’s board on 5 November, asking for a postponement. The fund said that extra time would enable the US regulatory approval process for Inmarsat’s “valuable Ligado spectrum assets” to finish.
Oaktree’s letter said that it believed the takeover offer “ascribes no value to these crucial spectrum assets and the associated lease for use in developing a 5G [fifth-generation mobile] network” – which “in light of recent developments may be approved by the FCC [Federal communications Commission] in the near term”.
At the time, Inmarsat said that its board and financial advisors had “continued to properly assess, amongst other matters, the timing and prospect of revenue or other value to be received by Inmarsat pursuant to the cooperation agreement (between Inmarsat and Ligado) and in the board's view, these remain uncertain”.
