PanAmSat's $100 Million Problem
Sometimes in business you just have to grin and bear the odd $100 million loss, and that's what PanAmSat senior VP Robert Bednarek is preparing to do with Wednesday's announcement that the company isn't likely to recover its wayward Galaxy 4 satellite. The numbers are not pretty: The company had insured Galaxy 4 for about $150 million, but it will cost an estimated $250 million to construct, launch and insure a replacement next year. That's not even counting losses from service disruptions brought on by Galaxy 4's demise.
The company says it could take a week to reorient antennas and restore service to the nation's pagers and radio feeds, not to mention ATMs -- which PanAmSat will probably need to be using early and often over the next few months.
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