Loral Space & Communications

Loral Space & Communications

Loral Space & Communications operates as a publicly traded holding company controlled by MHR Fund Management, the distressed-investment vehicle founded by Mark Rachesky. Rachesky, a former protégé of Carl Icahn, gained control of Loral in the mid-2000s after the company emerged from bankruptcy, transforming a legacy satellite manufacturer into a vehicle for owning spectrum rights and a major equity stake in Canadian satellite operator Telesat. The firm's prior life under Bernard L. Schwartz was that of a frontline defense contractor and satellite builder, but today's Loral is a financial structure, not an operating business. The firm's investing posture revolves entirely around Telesat, one of the world's largest satellite operators and the vehicle through which Loral participates in the emerging low-earth-orbit broadband market. Loral's primary asset is a 62.7% economic stake in Telesat, a Canadian company whose LEO constellation, Telesat Lightspeed, aims to compete with SpaceX's Starlink and Amazon's Project Kuiper. The firm co-invests alongside the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which holds the remaining minority interest in Telesat. A legacy joint venture, XTAR LLC, continues to provide X-band communications to government users, co-owned with Spain's Hisdesat Servicios Estrategicos. Loral reports no material operations beyond its satellite-services holdings. With an Altss-estimated AUM of roughly $42 million at the holding company level, the firm functions as a publicly traded pass-through to Telesat's value rather than a conventional pension fund or asset manager. MHR Fund Management maintains offices at 600 Fifth Avenue in New York, and Rachesky exercises control through a dual-class share structure that concentrates voting power. The Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation represents the philanthropic legacy of the prior leadership, though no current charitable structures are attributed to Rachesky or MHR. Structurally, Loral is distinctive as one of the few remaining publicly traded single-asset holding companies in the United States — a shareholder's only way to access Telesat equity alongside a Canadian pension giant before any potential take-private or merger. The firm has no direct investment team, no fund commitments, and no disclosed co-investment club. Succession is moot; control rests with MHR Fund Management's equity stake, itself a remnant of the distressed-credit thesis Rachesky executed on Loral's bankruptcy claims two decades ago.