Orbcomm Secures Five-year, $45 Million Loan from AIG

PARIS — Satellite machine-to-machine messaging service provider Orbcomm has secured a five-year, $45 million loan from AIG Asset Management to provide for potential acquisitions and for capital expenditures as it prepares the launch of 18 second-generation satellites, Orbcomm announced Jan. 7.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Fort Lee, N.J.-based Orbcomm said the loan carries an annual interest rate of 9.5 percent, to be paid quarterly, and may be repaid at any time prior to its maturity in January 2018.

Orbcomm said the loan permitted it to cancel a $20 million line of credit it had secured from its satellite prime contractor, Sierra Nevada Corp. of Sparks, Nev., which Orbcomm had never used.

Orbcomm said the AIG loan includes covenants setting limits on Orbcomm’s future indebtedness and on certain investments, and has been secured by “substantially all” of the company’s assets.

Orbcomm operates a fleet of low-orbiting satellites that provide messaging services to a wide range of assets, both fixed and mobile, for government and corporate customers. The company has used a couple of new satellites, purchased independently of the 18-satellite Sierra Nevada order, to broaden its market to providing automatic identification system data on ship identity and heading to global coastal authorities.

The 18 Sierra Nevada-built second-generation Orbcomm satellites are scheduled for launch on two Falcon 9 rockets built by Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif. The launches are set to occur in 2013 and 2014.