Skynet 5
VEGA was asked by the Private Finance Initiative's lead banks
to participate as the lender’s technical advisor during the Skynet
5 PFI evaluation.
Challenge
The UK Government implemented a Private Finance Initiative to
provide military communications services for the UK Ministry of
Defence. The initiative entailed a complete communications network
infrastructure, including system management, operation, maintenance
and service delivery. At least two new Skynet 5 satellites acted as
the main bearers with potential revenues amounting to £2.5bn. An
essential activity before any PFI contract can be commercially
closed is to ensure that the financial organisations are willing to
provide the capital for such a complex undertaking.
How VEGA helped
Due to VEGA’s long heritage in military satellite communication
programmes, VEGA was asked by the PFI’s lead banks to participate
as the lender’s technical advisor during the Skynet 5 PFI
evaluation. Through understanding the technical issues of a project
and being able to communicate them in the light of their commercial
importance, the lender’s technical advisor allows risk to be
assessed with greater confidence. VEGA performed the necessary
detailed analyses of the system level requirements, the technical
solution, the flow-down of requirements from top-level contract,
risk planning, scheduling and technical feasibility. We provided
feedback to the main lending arrangers and investing syndicate as
to the major risks associated with all aspects of the technical
solution and implementation plans.
Value delivered
As a result, the Skynet 5 PFI contract was successfully awarded
by the UK government to Paradigm Secure Communications with the
financial backing fully in place. The largest PFI programme for the
UK Ministry of Defence will provide communications for the UK
military for many years in the future.