During the period, SES continued to diversify its funding sources and to enhance its financial liquidity. In April, a 2 billion euros syndicated loan was signed, and in June SES returned to the Eurobond market with a 650 million euros 5-year issue. These initiatives support SES’ objective of securing funding at favourable rates, with a well balanced maturity profile. After the period end, SES concluded a EUR 150 million private placement with 7-year maturity at comparable terms to existing facilities, further improving the maturity profile. Net Debt at the period end was EUR 3,658 million, delivering a Net Debt/EBITDA ratio of 3.16 times, in line with the objective to maintain this ratio below 3.3 times. On April 3, 2009, the S-band payload of the Solaris Mobile joint venture was launched aboard JV partner Eutelsat’s W2A satellite. During in-orbit testing it was confirmed that there was significant non-compliance with the original technical specifications. An insurance claim has been filed for the full insured value of the payload. Nevertheless, the testing has indicated that Solaris Mobile should be able to offer some of the services it was planning to offer. Solaris Mobile is confident that it will be able to meet the commitments that supported the award of the S-band spectrum by the European Union, and remains entirely committed to provide these services to the European market. The Group operates certain spacecraft of the Lockheed Martin A2100 series, which are susceptible to unpredictable solar array circuit failures. During the period there were no additional failures requiring transponder capacity to be reduced. Furthermore, there is a comprehensive power management plan in place to mitigate the effect of any such failure, and no acceleration of the replacement programme for these spacecraft is planned. To read the entire financial report, access this direct link.
Satnews Daily
August 2nd, 2009
Financially Speaking... SES...
During the second quarter, SES continued to build on the achievements recorded in the first three months of the year.
The results for the first six months of 2009 underline the resilience of SES' business against the challenging economic landscape. Group revenue rose 7.0 percent to 843.4 million euros, aided by the strength of the U.S. dollar in the period. On a recurring basis, revenue growth was 2.0 percent, driven by the solid growth of 4.0 percent in the infrastructure business. In services, lower equipment sales and timing of revenue recognition on some larger programmes at ND SatCom resulted in a slight reduction compared with the prior period. There was healthy growth in EBITDA, which was 10.3 percent ahead of the prior year at 607.0 million euros, reflecting the continued focus on cost management, the further improvement of the infrastructure EBITDA margin, and the limited impact from the reduced contribution from lower margin services business. Operating profit grew by 9.2 percent to 359.9 million euros.
During the period, SES continued to diversify its funding sources and to enhance its financial liquidity. In April, a 2 billion euros syndicated loan was signed, and in June SES returned to the Eurobond market with a 650 million euros 5-year issue. These initiatives support SES’ objective of securing funding at favourable rates, with a well balanced maturity profile. After the period end, SES concluded a EUR 150 million private placement with 7-year maturity at comparable terms to existing facilities, further improving the maturity profile. Net Debt at the period end was EUR 3,658 million, delivering a Net Debt/EBITDA ratio of 3.16 times, in line with the objective to maintain this ratio below 3.3 times. On April 3, 2009, the S-band payload of the Solaris Mobile joint venture was launched aboard JV partner Eutelsat’s W2A satellite. During in-orbit testing it was confirmed that there was significant non-compliance with the original technical specifications. An insurance claim has been filed for the full insured value of the payload. Nevertheless, the testing has indicated that Solaris Mobile should be able to offer some of the services it was planning to offer. Solaris Mobile is confident that it will be able to meet the commitments that supported the award of the S-band spectrum by the European Union, and remains entirely committed to provide these services to the European market. The Group operates certain spacecraft of the Lockheed Martin A2100 series, which are susceptible to unpredictable solar array circuit failures. During the period there were no additional failures requiring transponder capacity to be reduced. Furthermore, there is a comprehensive power management plan in place to mitigate the effect of any such failure, and no acceleration of the replacement programme for these spacecraft is planned. To read the entire financial report, access this direct link.
During the period, SES continued to diversify its funding sources and to enhance its financial liquidity. In April, a 2 billion euros syndicated loan was signed, and in June SES returned to the Eurobond market with a 650 million euros 5-year issue. These initiatives support SES’ objective of securing funding at favourable rates, with a well balanced maturity profile. After the period end, SES concluded a EUR 150 million private placement with 7-year maturity at comparable terms to existing facilities, further improving the maturity profile. Net Debt at the period end was EUR 3,658 million, delivering a Net Debt/EBITDA ratio of 3.16 times, in line with the objective to maintain this ratio below 3.3 times. On April 3, 2009, the S-band payload of the Solaris Mobile joint venture was launched aboard JV partner Eutelsat’s W2A satellite. During in-orbit testing it was confirmed that there was significant non-compliance with the original technical specifications. An insurance claim has been filed for the full insured value of the payload. Nevertheless, the testing has indicated that Solaris Mobile should be able to offer some of the services it was planning to offer. Solaris Mobile is confident that it will be able to meet the commitments that supported the award of the S-band spectrum by the European Union, and remains entirely committed to provide these services to the European market. The Group operates certain spacecraft of the Lockheed Martin A2100 series, which are susceptible to unpredictable solar array circuit failures. During the period there were no additional failures requiring transponder capacity to be reduced. Furthermore, there is a comprehensive power management plan in place to mitigate the effect of any such failure, and no acceleration of the replacement programme for these spacecraft is planned. To read the entire financial report, access this direct link.