Loral Space & Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: LORL) today announced that its Board of Directors has declared a special dividend of $13.60 per share for an aggregate dividend of up to $421 million. The dividend is payable on April 20, 2012 to holders of record of Loral voting and non-voting common stock as of April 10, 2012. As of March 27, 2012, there were outstanding 21,117,311 shares of Loral voting common stock and 9,505,673 shares of Loral non-voting stock.
Loral's declaration of this special dividend is a direct result of Telesat's completion today of a refinancing and recapitalization transaction which resulted in a dividend from Telesat to Loral. As part of the transaction, Telesat entered into a new credit agreement that replaced its existing credit agreement and increased its indebtedness by approximately $490 million. Commenting on Telesat's refinancing, Michael B. Targoff, Chief Executive Officer of Loral, said: "I am particularly gratified that Telesat was able to raise approximately $2.5 billion of bank financing with an average annual interest rate of approximately 4.4%, another testament to the strength of the Telesat business."
