Federal regulators on Friday approved LightSquared’s request to transfer its valuable spectrum licenses to a newly formed company, paving the way for the wireless venture to emerge from bankruptcy protection by the end of the year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The Federal Communications Commission approved the company’s change-of-control application, allowing the transfer of its licenses to spectrum, the limited pockets of airwaves that mobile-phone and Internet companies use, to a “New LightSquared,” a condition of the plan to exit bankruptcy after more than 3 and a half years under court protection. Notably absent from the restructured wireless venture’s management group is hedge-fund manager Phil Falcone and his Harbinger Capital Partners, which lost control of the company during the bankruptcy case. Fortress Investment Group LLC, Centerbridge Partners and J.P. Morgan & Chase Co. share ownership in the reorganized company. Falcone, who lost nearly $2 billion on LightSquared, will maintain at least a 44 percent stake in the company, although the hedge-fund manager won’t have day-to-day say in the wireless spectrum venture’s operations.
