APT Satellite Holdings


APT Satellite Holdings Limited is a Bermuda-incorporated holding company. Its Hong Kong-incorporated subsidiary APT Satellite Co., Ltd. is the operator of the Apstar satellite constellation. APT Satellite Holdings and APT Satellite are headquartered in Hong Kong.
As at 30 June 2016 the company had a market capitalisation of HK$3.816 billion. It is a red chip company, as it was an overseas incorporated company, but controlled by the Chinese Government indirectly. Fellow Hong Kong-based satellite company AsiaSat was also partially owned by the Chinese Government, but belongs to a different department of the State Council.

History

The establishment of APT Satellite Company Limited was approved by the State Council of the People's Republic of China on 26 March 1992. However, the company was in fact incorporated on 21 January 1992 as Free Union Limited, renaming to Trans-Asia-Pacific Satellite Communications Co., Ltd. on 10 March and finally APT Satellite Co., Ltd. on 15 April.

Businesses

As at 31 December 2016, APT Satellite Holdings, via wholly owned subsidiary APT Satellite Company Limited owns and operates four in-orbit satellites that include Apstar 5, Apstar 6, Apstar 7 and Apstar 9 satellites giving it satellite coverage across Asia but also into Europe, Africa and the wider APAC region including Australia. It also leased some of the bandwidth of ChinaSat 12.

List of satellites

The largest shareholder of APT Satellite Holdings was APT Satellite International for 51.77% shares; APT Satellite International was 42.86% owned by Chinese state-owned China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation indirectly, via a non-wholly owned subsidiary China Satellite Communications; China Satellite Communications owned an additional 1.45% shares of APT Satellite Holdings via another subsidiary: "China Satellite Communications ". Moreover, CASC owned an additional 14.29% stake of APT Satellite International, via another wholly owned subsidiary China Great Wall Industry Corporation. Lastly, CASC owned 1.45% shares of APT Satellite Holdings directly. To sum up, CASC consortium owned about 54.67% shares of APT Satellite Holdings and CASC owned about 57.15% stake of its intermediate holding company APT Satellite International. CASC acquired the aforementioned 14.29% shares of APT Satellite International from its listed subsidiary China Aerospace International Holdings in 2011, by purchasing a company CASIL Satellite for HK$132.3 million.
In 2003, the other shareholders of APT Satellite International were China Satellite Communications ; SingaSat, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singtel; and Kwang Hua Development and Investment, a Hong Kong company co-owned by Ruentex Group and China Development Corporation.
The second largest shareholder of APT Satellite Holdings was Temasek Holdings for 5.51% shares. It was followed by International Value Adviser, LLC for 5.12%.