LightSquared Makes Inmarsat Payment to Win Time for Talks

Philip Falcone’s LightSquared made an outstanding $56.3 million payment to Britain’s Inmarsat Plc related to a spectrum-cooperation accord and was granted an extension on further installments, gaining more time to win approval from US regulators for a wireless service.

The broadband venture won’t need to make any additional payments until April 2014 as part of the new agreement, Inmarsat, the biggest provider of satellite services to the maritime industry, said today in a statement. LightSquared will no longer be in default, it said. Under the companies’ agreement, Inmarsat is giving LightSquared access to part of its spectrum. LightSquared, majority-owned by Falcone’s hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, is struggling to get approval for a wireless service after the Federal Communications Commission said it will block the venture because of potential signal interference with global-positioning systems. Falcone has invested about $3 billion in the plan to build out a high-speed data network.