One of South Korea’s big three combines Hyundai Electronics Industries Co has announced it will take a 5.3 % stake for $300 million in Bill Gates’ satellite consortium Teledesic.
Hyundai says it will invest $75 million this year using borrowings raised in the U.S. financial market. Details on the additional funds were not provided.
Seattle-based Teledesic, set up by technology billionaires Bill Gates and Craig McCaw, is scheduled to begin operation by the end of 2002, with 288 satellites in low-Earth orbit providing two-way, broad-band communications.
Teledesic is also talking to telecommunications giants, such as AT&T, MCI and Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp, for further equity investments.
Teledesic plans to raise half the $9 billion cost of its planned global satellite network through equity investment and the other half through debt.
