Bermuda-based Intelsat Ltd., the satellite company that broadcast video signals of the first moon walk, plans to raise as much as $500 million in an initial public offering after cancelling the stock sale once before. Intelsat, the third-largest global satellite provider, plans to price the IPO at $12 to $14 a share, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

?The most interesting thing about the offering is whether they get it off or not,?? said Uri Landesman, who helps manage $25 billion at Federated Investors Inc. in New York.

The US House of Representatives approved legislation in September, 2002 that allowed Intelsat to delay a government-mandated IPO because of a slump in the stock market. The measure granted an extension until June 30 of this year. Companies sold $13.89 billion of shares for the first time in 2003, the least since $4.48 billion in 1990, according to Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida.

After the Standard & Poor?s 500 Index rose more than a third in the past 12 months, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. expects as much as$40 billion of IPOs this year.Underwriters Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch & Co. are managing the Intelsat share sale, the filing said. The date and the number of shares to be sold wasn?t specified. Citigroup Inc. and Lehman are assisting in the sale of the shares.Intelsat, founded in 1964, provided the so-called hot line connecting the White House to the Kremlin and has broadcast every Olympics since 1968. Intelsat sells satellite space used to transmit voice, video and data services.The company had net income of $181.1 million last year on revenue of $952.8 million. Intelsat sells satellite services to more than 600 customers, including AT&T Corp., the US government and the United Nations, according to the filing. It has had a profit every year since 1973, the filing said. Intelsat has 23 satellites in orbit and leases capacity on two satellites in the Asia-Pacific region, enabling it to reach 99 percent of the world?s population. Last July, the company bought Loral Space & Communications Corp. for $1.02 billion,adding assets that included four satellites and one under construction. Its chief executive is Conny Kullman, 53. The chie financial officer is Joseph Corbett, 44, the filing said. ? Bloomberg News