Why not both?
I've said several times that, rather than shoehorn the Panther into an existing manufacturer (the name Zorgon Peterson gets thrown around a lot with the Panther), they should introduce a full line of the various cat-themed ships from FFE. In FFE, there was the Lion, Tiger, Puma and Panther, plus one of the original megaships - the Lynx, with the name Gupta Industrial Corporation being closely associated with the Lion. Four entirely new ships spanning a wide range of sizes (the FFE bunch ranged from roughly Python-sized up to a step or two larger than the Anaconda) is more than enough to introduce a new manufacturer into the game and would make for a good headline feature for a small content patch, particularly if combined with CGs and other in-game events.