Transpacific Broadband clarifies that Starlink team-up is only 'aspirational'
On October 28, Transpacific Broadband Group [TBGI 0.34 4.29%] made a big fuss in a press release about how it authorized its management team to “engage in discussions” with “major” satellite operators, but specifically named Elon Musk’s Starlink (a subsidiary of SpaceX) as one of those “major” operators. TBGI even provided an “About Starlink” at the bottom of the disclosure, which is something that is not normally done for potential parties to a transaction. The next day, TBGI whipped out another press release saying that it had signed an agreement with third party company for the “development and maintenance” of a LEOSAT satellite station in Clark, Pampanga, for “Starlink Holdings N.B.V.” (which is a SpaceX affiliate company; the “NBV” stands for Netherlands besloten vennootschap, which means “private company”).
In the clarification issued yesterday, TBGI said that an article stating that Elon Musk had been speaking with two Philippine companies (TBGI and Converge [CNVRG 35.70 0.70]) was not based on any statements from TBGI officers or documents, and that the “views and interpretations” of the author on the subject were “entirely” that of the author, and not in any way from TBGI. And yet, again, the company did not say specifically that it has not been talking with Starlink. In countering the article’s claim that TBGI was talking with Starlink, TBGI seems unable to just simply state that it has not been talking with Starlink. It takes a long walk around by saying that it has “initiated several discussions with major satellite operators”, but that it is the “aspiration” of TBGI to “be able to engage in discussions with upcoming major LEOSAT operators”, and then followed this by implying that the only reason it mentioned Starlink is that TBGI noticed that Starlink seemed to have interest in the Philippine region.
MB BOTTOM-LINE
TBGI is being a little too cute for my liking here, and I’m honestly not sure where the line is with respect to what might constitute a misleading statement. It’s clear that TBGI views Starlink as a “big get”, and it’s natural that the market would feel this way as well towards Starlink. TBGI has an obvious interest in playing up any possible deal with Starlink; that the provider is Starlink, the brain-child of a media mongrel and meme-lord like Elon Musk, is practically the only newsworthy part of the entire press release. Nobody disputes that it’s possible for TBGI to get Starlink, but I think that TBGI may have gone too far in terms of how heavily it has been implying that a deal with Starlink has already been signed or negotiated when it’s (sort of) clear, based on this disclosure, that it hasn’t even spoken with Starlink yet.
I mean, it straight-up said that it signed an agreement with a company to build a satellite station for a Starlink-affiliated corporation. If it hasn’t even spoken with Starlink (according to my reading of TBGI’s needlessly cryptic disclo), then how can it say that the construction of this facility could be “for” another company that it only “aspires” to “be able” to talk to? How can TBGI say that it had no hand in constructing the context for the author’s claim that TBGI has already spoken with Starlink? From my perspective, that inference was exactly the outcome that their press releases were designed to encourage.
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