NEW YORK — LightSquared late Tuesday filed a restructuring plan that would give Charlie Ergen what he has said he wants in the wireless spectrum company’s Chapter 11 case — all cash for the roughly $1 billion he is owed.
In the amended reorganization proposal, filed just before midnight Tuesday with U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, the mobile satellite company said it would pay off the Dish Network Corp. chairman, the company’s largest creditor, in cash rather than a combination of cash and a five-year note. The money would come from a $1.52 billion new loan provided by Jefferies & Co., which had offered financing in other LightSquared proposals throughout the case, all of which fell through.
The new plan, which was discussed in court Wednesday after a multiday hearing on whether LightSquared’s ever-changing reorganization proposal is feasible, was filed after hedge-fund managers Solus Alternative Asset Management LP and Cerberus Capital Management LP announced a rival proposal that would pay most, but not all, of Ergen’s claim in cash.
Ergen supports that proposal, which would pump more new money into the company than LightSquared’s own plan.
