LightSquared On The Brink As Falcone Considers Bankruptcy

Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone had big dreams for LightSquared. The original plan was for the company to provide wireless LTE broadband using frequencies very near those that GPS devices rely on. The idea sounded good at first and things are progressing rapidly until LightSquared came to the point where testing to be sure LightSquared devices wouldn't interfere with GPS begun.

It was determined that LightSquared posed serious interference with most GPS devices and things went downhill quickly. Falcone has now admitted that he is seriously considering filing for voluntary bankruptcy for the company. Falcone's hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners is the majority partner in LightSquared.

The company seems dead at this point after missing payments to creditors and having no obvious path forward. Falcone says bankruptcy gives the company time to find a way to address the GPS interference issues that have crippled it. He also says that even if he filed bankruptcy, investors wouldn't necessarily lose everything invested in the company because the spectrum LightSquared holds is worth money.

[via Reuters]