Phil Falcone's Lightsquared May Have Some Kinks To Work Out

Author:: Bess Levin
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Jun 10, 2011

Nothing huge but the network might "cause devastating interference" to GPS devices.

A new set of government tests showed that LightSquared's proposed mobile broadband network disrupted the signal strength to all GPS devices in the test area, dealing another setback to the company's startup plans. While all global-positioning system devices tested were affected, the severity of the loss of service varied, said Deane Bunce, co-chair of the National PNT Engineering Forum, a federal advisory group of engineers that oversaw the government tests. Mr. Bunce, speaking at a federal government advisory group hearing Thursday, said some devices lost signal strength while others were knocked out completely. For example, the government tests found that General Motors Co.'s OnStar system saw a "significant degradation of service" on most receivers tested.
[...]
LightSquared's airwaves are located close to the airwaves used by GPS receivers, which can be overpowered by the wireless start-up's signals. "It will cause interference. It will cause devastating interference," said James Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble Navigation Ltd., a GPS maker. "There is not a solution here. In our view it's time to stop squandering resources on this and find alternative spectrum for them."...The government tests suggest that LightSquared's GPS issues are more wide-spread than previously known. Last week, construction giant Deere & Co. reported that during recent testing in New Mexico, LightSquared's network hobbled it's GPS systems more than 20 miles away. Local law enforcement also reported police cars and ambulances lost GPS signals.

Related: Harbinger Capital Will Pay Redemptions…In Illiquid LightSquared Equity

...and he hopes investors haven't either, not that they have much choice in the matter. If recent performance has been difficult to swallow, comfort thyself with the fact that lots of things get worse before they get better. Falcone is giving this thing 150% and its genius will reveal itself in due time. Hedge fund manager Philip Falcone's clients got another dose of bad news when the billionaire investor said his flagship fund lost 29.6 percent in February largely because of ailing telecommunications company LightSquared Inc...Falcone often takes his time, relative to other hedge fund managers, in releasing monthly performance numbers...Falcone, who has bank rolled the company by having invested over $3 billion, held out hope for LightSquared's future when he told investors on an investor call in mid-February that he remained committed to the project. [Reuters]

To put it lightly, the last couple years have been a rather dark time for Phil Falcone. Though his woes are too numerous to mention in full, they include: the adversity he's faced in getting people to believe in LightSquared; his unbelievably pissy investors, who still aren't over the time he borrowed $113 million from a gated fund to pay personal taxes, or offered to pay out redemptions in illiquid LightSquared equity; the Securities and Exchange Commission, which wants him banned from the industry for life; the woman who once offered a respite from it all, who now won't even come out of her room when she knows he's home; and, of course, the plunging returns in his once highly profitable hedge fund. It would be enough to make a grown man say 'Fuck, it. I'm done.' Put a few things in a sack, tie it to the blade of a hockey stick, and hitchhike back to Minnesota. But Phil didn't do that and now? After a merciless storm of shit that felt like it would never ease up? After long days of investors and regulators breathing down his neck and nights of having to pound on the front door because he was accidentally purposely locked out of the house? The tide feels like it's turning for Philip Falcone. Beleaguered hedge fund honcho Phil Falcone’s big bet on his own publicly traded entity, Harbinger Group, is helping to lift his troubled hedge fund, Harbinger Capital Management, out of the deep end. Falcone’s flagship fund posted returns of 10.6 percent in July and a whopping 28 percent gain in June. Of course, he's still down 5.8 percent year-to-date, and the the director of the SEC's division of enforcement wants hedge fund graduate schools to use Harbinger as a case study during the unit on "how to operate a hedge fund unlawfully," but tonight? Tonight he tells Lisa to treat herself to something nice. Tonight he tells Wilbur to pull the baby grand out of the closet, where it's sat untouched for months. Tonight his key works in the lock. Tonight we dance. Phil Helps Himself [NYP]

From outward appearances, the past couple years have been a stressful time for Phil Falcone. After making billions of dollars for himself and for his investors on subprime, the Harbinger Capital Partners founder provoked the ire of many a client by tying up a good chunk of their money in a wireless start-up called LightSquared (a company the Federal Communications Commission is no fan of, due to the fact that it reportedly interferes with GPS devices used on land, sea, and in outer space), by borrowing $113 million from a gated fund in order to pay personal taxes, and by only allowing certain investors (Goldman Sachs) to get out while freezing redemptions for others and then telling them they could leave if they found some else to pick up their stake. Assets under management at Harbinger have dropped $23 billion, from a peak of $26 billion. For a variety of reasons, the Securities and Exchange commission wants to see him banned from the industry. A worried Bloomberg News reporter recently revealed he has a problem with pit stains ("[his] shirt appeared darker under the arms in his office last month"), which wouldn't pose an issue were his shirt supply not dwindling rapidly ("One place Falcone is visiting less frequently is Domenico Vacca, the New York boutique where suits retail for $3,900 and shirts $490, according to a person with knowledge of his purchases. He orders every four or five months [now] compared with every two or three months between 2006 and 2009"). For all these reasons and more (like, say, a sensitive and highly-strung pig who is not happy), some people might assume that Falcone would at best be in deep contemplative mode regarding how things got this far at worst be freaking the fuck out, particularly over the possibilities that 1) the SEC is going to file civil fraud charges and 2) if LightSquared doesn't pan out, he's going to lose a whole lot of money. Those people, however, would be wrong. Not only is he not at all worried that his passion project won't work out ( “I am not losing sleep on this -- why would I lose sleep?” he asked Bloomberg), but he dares anyone to come up with a reason for why he's not going to make $20+ billion on this thing. “This is not for the faint of heart,” Falcone said. “I’ve never looked at it as having $4 billion or $25 billion as defining Philip Falcone. But who’s to say I won’t get back to $25 billion?” What? It could happened. You don't know. Falcone Waits for Icahn Doubling Down on Network [Bloomberg]