Mubadala seeks satellite finance

Mubadala Development Company has invited 10 banks to submit financing proposals for a $1.4 billion (Dh5.1bn) satellite to be built by a group including Europe’s EADS, two bankers familiar with the deal said.

Five international and five local banks have been asked to submit offers for the financing deal, one of the bankers told Reuters on Tuesday.

“The financing requirements are about $1.1bn,” said one banker, declining to be identified. The financing would include 85 per cent debt and 15 per cent equity, the banker said.

European aerospace group EADS and France’s Thales Alenia Space, a venture controlled by Thales and Italy’s Finmeccanica, will launch the first satellite in 2010, Mubadala said earlier, in August.

Mubadala, which is promoting the deal on behalf of the UAE Armed Forces, is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, the largest member of the oil exporting UAE federation and home to more than 90 per cent of the country’s total oil reserves.

The value of the deal was likely to be about $1.66bn, Mubadala’s chief operating officer Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi told Reuters in August.

BNP Paribas is currently the financial adviser on the transaction.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in the UAE today as part of a trip to secure contracts for French firms. The two countries are set to sign a framework agreement on civilian nuclear power. (Reuters)