24 May 2010

KT Corporation (KT) and Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) have completed their second successful transaction in less than 12 months with the execution of the agreement for the sale and purchase of the Koreasat-3 satellite. Just over ten months earlier, KT and ABS had announced the successful completion of the sale and purchase of the Koreasat-2 satellite. The closing of the Koreasat-3 sale will occur upon the issuance of the necessary U.S. governmental approvals.

The Koreasat-3 satellite is a Lockheed Martin A2100 spacecraft launched in September 1999. The satellite has a payload consisting of 24 x 36MHz FSS Ku-band (12 fixed and 12 steerable beams), 6 x 27 MHz BSS Ku-band and 3 x 200 MHz FSS Ka-Band transponders. Koreasat-3 will be renamed as ABS-7 as a result of this transaction.

With sufficient fuel for station-kept operations in Geo-stationary orbit for an estimated 6-7 years and an additional 5-6 years of inclined-orbit operations, ABS-7 (Koreasat-3) will provide significant high powered Ku-band and Ka-band capacities to meet ABS„s customer demands for cellular backhaul, VSAT services, satellite broadband and US/NATO government requirements in the Middle East region.

KT Corporation will continue to provide the satellite operations and Telemetry, Tracking and Control (TT&C) services for the ABS-7 (Koreasat-3) spacecraft at 116°East Longitude.

Mr. Sung Man Kim, Senior Executive Vice President of KT, said: "This transaction is designed to be of mutual benefit to both companies through a win-win negotiation based on a long term strategic relationship between KT and ABS. ABS-7(KOREASAT-3) will allow ABS to fulfill its business goal through KT‟s reliable satellite operation service and fulfill the requirement of back up for KOREASAT-6 at the same time. We believe that this transaction will strengthen a relationship with ABS for the future business opportunity."

Mr. Tom Choi, CEO of Asia Broadcast Satellite said: "We are extremely excited to have completed another successful transaction with KT in such a short period of time. I sincerely believe that this is a true testament to our mutual respect and desire to work together in building a solid foundation of cooperation and trust for the co-development of exciting opportunities in the near future. Similar to Koreasat-2, the Koreasat-3 satellite is a very well designed, powerful Ku-band satellite which will allow ABS to provide its customers additional capacity over the Middle East region and will be a valuable addition to our existing satellite fleet."