Placing of £75m to fund proposed HYLAS 3 satellite Avanti, the satellite operator, has today announced a conditional placing of 26,785,714 Ordinary Shares with new and existing institutional investors to raise approximately £73.8 million (net of expenses).

The Placing is to enable Avanti to fully fund the cost of the design, construction and launch of HYLAS 3. HYLAS 3 will be a “hosted payload”, flown on a new European Space Agency (“ESA”) satellite which will also have a scientific purpose. HYLAS 3 would provide Ka band services, as with HYLAS 1 and 2. Under the terms of the programme, Avanti would retain ownership and operational control of the HYLAS 3 hosted payload.

Avanti has been selected by ESA to be the hosted payload partner after a competitive tendering process which was conducted by ESA in 2011. Final contractual terms with ESA are expected to be agreed and contracts signed in March 2012. Avanti and ESA have worked together successfully in the past on projects: in particular ESA and Avanti collaborated on ESA’s first Public Private Partnership which led to the successful launch of HYLAS 1.

The Placing is conditional, inter alia, upon the passing by Shareholders of resolutions to give the directors power to allot additional Ordinary Shares, and to allot the Placing Shares on a non-pre-emptive basis. The expansive remainder of this report is available here.