AllThingsD » Harbinger Capital Partners

LightSquared Lenders Pressure Falcone

Mike Spector and Greg Bensinger — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:31:46 +0000

Some of LightSquared Inc.’s lenders want hedge-fund manager Philip Falcone to step aside as the public face of the wireless communications firm as a condition for avoiding a looming debt default, said people familiar with the matter.

The lenders are in talks with representatives of Mr. Falcone, the founder of Harbinger Capital Partners LLC and LightSquared’s main backer, over possibly extending a waiver on debt-term violations that expires Monday, the people said.

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Harbinger Investors Sue Over LightSquared

Greg Bensinger — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:55:54 +0000

Investors in Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners sued the fund and Mr. Falcone on Friday, saying the “all in” investment in wireless startup LightSquared Inc. squandered billions of dollars.

The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, said Mr. Falcone made “deceptive and misleading statements” by not disclosing that he intended to form the new wireless company, which was told this week by the Federal Communications Commission it couldn’t operate its network because of Global Positioning System interference concerns.

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Harbinger Says Wireless Venture Signed Sprint Deal

Jenny Strasburg and Anton Troianovski — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:10:45 +0000

Philip Falcone’s hedge fund says its mobile-broadband start-up, LightSquared Inc., has signed a 15-year agreement with Sprint Nextel Corp. to jointly build and operate a planned new wireless network.

The deal, disclosed in a letter to investors in Mr. Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners hedge funds, reflects progress on the business side of an ambitious plan that still faces significant regulatory and technological hurdles, including complaints from the Defense Department and others that it would interfere with global positioning system devices.

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Wireless Network Races for Funds

Jenny Strasburg and Spencer E. Ante — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:00:39 +0000

Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone is facing financial and regulatory deadlines as he moves to raise more funds—in the form of debt—for his plan to build a new high-speed wireless network.

The plan, which would be expensive and risky even for an established telecommunications firm, involves launching two satellites that would communicate with more than 30,000 wireless base stations across the U.S., and then selling high-speed wireless access to U.S. phone companies, cable operators and others that want to offer the service in areas currently without coverage.

Pressure is mounting on Mr. Falcone and his Harbinger Capital Partners funds to show more progress. The four-year-old plan is underpinned by Harbinger’s controlling stake in satellite-telecom company SkyTerra Communications Inc., which estimated in a recent earnings presentation that it would need to come up with about $211 million for the third quarter to cover costs related to the development of the network. Expenses include insurance for a satellite launch and development of wireless base stations.

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Found! Someone Who's Optimistic About the New York Times!

Peter Kafka — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:30:58 +0000

The New York Times is doomed, right? This is becoming conventional wisdom among the Web cognoscenti, which gives them occasion to shake their heads ruefully and/or chastise the paper for not becoming Webby enough (never mind that the paper’s problem isn’t its inability to “influence the conversation”–it’s about not selling enough ads to cover its payroll).

But here, for what it’s worth, is a vote of confidence from people who presumably don’t care that the Times has yet to hire an army of semipro bloggers: Professional investors. Harbinger Capital Partners, the largest public shareholder in the New York Times (NYT), has purchased yet another block of stock. Last week the fund bought 50,000 shares at $5.12 a piece, according to a SEC filing.

The good news: Those shares were worth $6.64 each when the market closed on Monday. That’s a profit of $76,000 in a couple days.

The bad news: Harbinger has been steadily acquiring stock since last winter. And over that stretch of time, it has gotten hammered. In March, it owned 28.3 million shares worth $18.43 each–a 20 percent stake in the company, worth about $521 million. As of yesterday, it owned 28.5 million shares, worth $189 million.

Maybe the cognoscenti are onto something, after all.