TAMPA, Fla. — The pipeline of space-related projects seeking financial support from the U.S. export credit agency has more than doubled in the past year to $9.5 billion, a top official at the Export-Import Bank said Sept. 16.
“We are actively underwriting $800 million worth of space transactions as we speak,” Ex-Im first vice president and vice chair Judith Pryor said during a World Satellite Business Week panel in Paris.
She said work at Ex-Im, which provides direct loans, debt guarantees and other financial support for U.S. exporters, has started gaining momentum since reopening in 2019 after being shut down for four years as Congress debated the bank’s existence.
Requests for financial support are coming in from a mix of satellite projects, including Earth observation and internet constellations across geostationary and non-geostationary orbits.
Ex-Im’s board also approved a domestic finance initiative last year that Pryor said enables the bank to provide loans to a company seeking to set up a factory in the United States, as long as a portion of what is being made there is directly exported or is part of something that is.
The bank has signed off on four such projects so far. Pryor did not name these projects but said the policy could support factories building satellite antennas that are distributed globally.
“It almost allows us to take a little bit higher risk,” she said, “because we’re looking at it from the opposite angle. So now we can help you build” the factory, in addition to helping operators finance their constellation plans.
She said Ex-Im has permission to lend $100 billion in total, “and we’re ready to lend it if somebody’s got a couple of great ideas that could be bankable, that have a solid management team, that perhaps have some uptake agreements, but we’re agnostic to who we speak to in what sector and what size, or what orbit.”
Export credit agencies such as Ex-Im can offer financing on favorable terms, helping their country stimulate economic growth when markets head in the opposite direction.
However, Pryor said projects still need to be credible — Ex-Im also heavily scrutinizes transactions to determine “what kind of skin is in the game.”
French export credit agency BPI, which guarantees loans rather than lending them directly, has greatly reduced its exposure to space following the financial restructurings of large non-geostationary (NGSO) constellation projects Globalstar and Iridium more than a decade ago.
BPI director Sandrine Bedat said during the panel that the French agency is ready to consider supporting NGSO constellation projects again, but remains wary of their higher risk compared to classic programs in geostationary orbit.
Canadian operator Telesat originally planned to get BPI’s support to order its Lightspeed NGSO network from Thales Alenia Space, before pandemic-related supply chain delays at the European manufacturer and other issues prompted its switch to MDA, which is also based in Canada.
According to Bedat, BPI currently has nearly two billion euros ($2.2 billion) of space projects under management and about half a billion euros in the pipeline.
She noted the upcoming entry into service of Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket is expected to stimulate increased dealmaking within the industry.
Eduard Danielyan, senior investment officer of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), said the emerging markets-focused sister organization of the World Bank facilitated about $50 billion of space transactions last year.
IFC’s expansive financial toolkit includes long-term debt and project financing support.
Danielyan said the IFC has also recently decided to step up its involvement in space as the industry’s benefits for developing countries become clearer.
The IFC is “trying to look across the entire value chain,” he added, and is seeking ways to support distribution channels and ground infrastructure after starting with communications satellites.
