Will NewSat’s Failure Dim Ex-Im’s Appetite for Satellite Deals?

(Military Technologies, Singapore, 1 June 2015) Satellite operators on June 1 expressed concern that the U.S. Export-Import Bank and France’s Coface, the world’s two most-active export agencies (ECAs) in funding satellite projects, might reduce their support for the industry in light of the failure of start-up satellite operator NewSat of Australia. But these operators were far from unanimous about whether the failure, in which the Ex-Im Bank has definitively lost well over $100 million, would have a long-term chilling effect on ECA financing for satellite projects. Coface’s loss, as a backer of NewSat’s launch contract with Arianespace of Europe, is uncertain and is much less than the Ex-Im Bank’s as backer of the satellite construction contract.