WildBlue Secures $350 Million Debt Financing

DENVER, Aug. 22, 2006/Satnews Daily/ — WildBlue Communications, Inc. has completed a $350 million debt financing led by Liberty Media Corporation and Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC.

WildBlue said the $350 million of secured financing enhances the company's capital structure and provides additional capital to fund the continuing growth of WildBlue's broadband business. WildBlue provides broadband connectivity via satellite to homes and small businesses in communities where terrestrial broadband access alternatives are either limited or unavailable.

“The WildBlue team has worked very hard this year to make our affordable broadband Internet service available to homes and small businesses in rural areas across the continental U.S.,” said Dave Leonard, CEO of WildBlue.

He said the company’s customer base continues to expand rapidly, with over 85,000 customers in rural areas who've taken advantage of the availability of WildBlue's high speed service to date.

“We are now adding over 10,000 new subscribers per month, and this funding enables substantial expansion of our service availability by tripling our customer capacity with the launch of our second satellite, WildBlue-1. Liberty Media has been instrumental in helping us achieve our growth objectives over the past year, and we welcome Tennenbaum Capital's expertise as an experienced telecommunications investment leader as we continue to expand our operations.”

The credit facility refinances a portion of the shareholder financing WildBlue secured in January of 2006, and also provides $170 million of additional financing for the company. Certain other shareholders who participated in the original financing, such as the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative, are also participating in this new expanded financing. Q Advisors LLC acted as financial advisor to WildBlue in connection with the transaction. Terms of the financing were not disclosed.

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