NEW YORK (Bloomberg) ? Bermuda-based Intelsat, a satellite operator being acquired by four leveraged-buyout firms, is renegotiating the price of the acquisition and will probably reduce a $2.55 billion bond sale, a potential investor in the issue said.

Intelsat said one of its satellites, a Lockheed Martin Corp. model used to provide communications for the Asia-Pacific region, suffered power failure and wasn't expected to return to operation. Intelsat, the second-largest global satellite operator, may be bought for $5 billion by four firms led by Apollo Management LP. The bonds were to be sold this week.

"The acquisition has not been called off and the terms of the deal are being renegotiated," said Charles Ullerich, a high- yield bond fund manager at ABN Amro Asset Management in Chicago, who listened to a conference call to discuss the transaction. "It's most likely that the amount of the financing will shrink by the amount of the renegotiated purchase price."

The satellite failure, the second since the purchase was announced in August, gave the investor group the right to cancel the buyout, Intelsat said in a statement on January 16. Intelsat spokeswoman Dianne VanBeber declined comment.

In the first satellite failure, the company regained control of its Intelsat Americas-7 satellite on Dec. 3 after a five-day malfunction. While that didn't affect the price for Intelsat, three leveraged-buyout firms reduced their purchase of PanAmSat Corp. by at least $200 million after a propulsion-system failure. Wilton, Connecticut-based PanAmSat is the world's biggest satellite company.