Deep Dive: Telesat's Lenders Want to Be Paid in Full Through a Shareholder Rights Offering
Telesat GEO owes US$1.71 billion on 6 December. Its lenders proposed a rescue that repays that debt in full, about half of it from a shareholder rights offering.
Deep Dive: Telesat’s Lenders Want to Be Paid in Full Through a Shareholder Rights Offering
Telesat GEO owes US$1.71 billion on 6 December and holds a fraction of it in cash. A group of its lenders has offered a rescue that repays the December debt at par, about half of it raised from the people who own the stock.
US$1.71B
Principal due on 6 December 2026: the Term Loan B and the 5.625% senior secured notes
12%
Share of the December payment covered by the C$286.7 million of cash held within Telesat GEO at 30 September
−21%
Change in Telesat’s GEO revenue in the third quarter of 2026 from a year earlier
1991
Year of the federal law that says no solvency or winding-up statute applies to Telesat Canada, now Telesat GEO
On 6 December 2026, Telesat GEO Inc., the company that owns Telesat’s geostationary orbit (GEO) fleet, owes US$1,707.6 million of principal on a Term Loan B and its 5.625% senior secured notes. Telesat’s third-quarter filing says its cash “alone” will not cover the GEO maturities and that this “casts substantial doubt” on its ability to pay. In October a group of GEO lenders including Silver Point Capital, GoldenTree Asset Management and Sound Point Capital Management proposed a rescue that repays the December debt in full, about half of it through a rights offering to shareholders. According to a source cited by The Globe and Mail, Telesat, which is building the Lightspeed low Earth orbit (LEO) network with Canadian government money, has acknowledged the offer without negotiating its terms; its filing says its advisers are in discussions with the lenders’ advisers.
Who pays if Telesat’s lenders get their way?
Telesat’s shareholders would fund about half of it. Under the proposal reported by The Globe and Mail and The Wall Street Journal, the debt due in December would be repaid in full with accrued interest, funded by a $1.7 billion rights offering priced at C$31.50 a share and a $1.5 billion new loan. A holder who does not subscribe would keep about 49% of their stake if the offering is in Canadian dollars, or about 41% if it is in US dollars, a point the reporting does not settle. The 1991 law that privatized Telesat Canada, now Telesat GEO, says no solvency or winding-up statute applies to that company, a provision no court has tested.
The ten sections of this Deep Dive are for paid subscribers.
Paid subscribers read sections 01 to 10, with the debt table, the dilution arithmetic in both currencies, the court docket and the dates to watch before 6 December. If you already subscribe, sign in and the page opens where you are.
- 01What Telesat GEO owes, and when
- 02How much cash can reach December
- 03Why GEO cannot refinance itself
- 04What the lenders offered
- 05What it costs shareholders
- 06Where the lawsuit stands
- 07Canadian insolvency law
- 08What Ottawa holds
- 09How other operators handled it
- 10Where I come out
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