Under an agreement reached on Oct. 31, 1999, McCaw and his affiliates will lead a group of existing ICO investors to provide $225 million in debtor-in-possession financing expected to be completed by Nov. 8, 1999, as well as $275 million in a second financing round expected to be completed by the end of January 2000.

Debtor-in-possession financing is interim debt financing that would be converted into equity when the company emerges from bankruptcy.

McCaw and his affiliates have also agreed to underwrite the remaining $700 million exit financing expected to be completed by second quarter 2000 upon consummation of the reorganisation plan. He will invite existing and additional strategic and financial investors in ICO to participate in this remaining portion of financing.

McCaw, chairman of Teledesic and Eagle River, said, "It is our hope that by working with ICO's team and international partners we can bring the company back to good health and make a contribution to global communications, particularly in the developing world. We recognize that this is a big job and that there's a lot of work ahead of us. Our investment in ICO marks the first step in our strategy to widen the technological tools at our disposal and serve a broader group of customers."

The McCaw-led investment will enable ICO to raise the $1.2 billion it needs to complete the build-out of its system and to provide working capital to the company up to the launch of its global mobile satellite services in the second quarter of 2001.

Richard Greco, ICO's chief executive officer, said, "ICO's future just got brighter. This financing agreement provides us with a clear path to exit from Chapter 11. Now we can move forward aggressively with our plans to complete our system and launch our global mobile voice and data services. We are particularly pleased to be partnering with Craig McCaw's team and benefiting from their broad experience in wireless communications." The investment is subject to approval of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, the Bermuda and Cayman Island courts as well as certain other conditions.

Certain of the matters discussed in this news release are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, technical, regulatory, operating, competitive and market risks, risks relating to ICO being a development-stage company, and other risks and uncertainties. These are detailed in ICO's documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

ICO Global Communications was established in January 1995 as a private company to provide global mobile personal communications services by satellite, including digital voice, data, facsimile, high-penetration notification, and messaging services. ICO Global Communications was listed on Nasdaq in July 1998. The stock was suspended from trading when the company filed for Chapter 11 protection on Aug. 27, 1999.

Craig McCaw is chairman of Teledesic LLC, which is building a global broadband Internet-in-the-Sky satellite communications network. McCaw and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are the company's two primary founding investors. Strategic investors also include Motorola, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and The Boeing Company. Teledesic (pronounced "tel-eh-DEH-sic") is a private company based in Bellevue, Wash., a suburb of Seattle.

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Nov 02, 2006