Page 55 - SAMENA Trends - May-June 2024

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

SES Announces Successful Syndication and

Raising of €3 Billion Acquisition Financing

SES S.A. announces the successful
syndication of a €3 billion equivalent
acquisition financing package to support
the earlier announced agreement for
SES to acquire Intelsat S.A.. Prior to the
Intelsat deal announcement, Deutsche
Bank AG and Morgan Stanley jointly had
underwritten a €3 billion bridge facility to
support SES’s financing requirements as
part of the agreement to acquire Intelsat.
This €3 billion bridge facility has been
successfully syndicated now, with a highly twice by a further six months while the Sandeep Jalan, Chief Financial Officer
oversubscribed level of commitments, to an term loan has a five-year amortizing tenor of SES, said, “We are delighted to have
international group of existing relationship from its drawl. The term loan financing received overwhelming support of our
and new banks in the form of a €2.1 billion diversifies funding sources for SES, at banking partners in the financing of this
bridge facility and US$1 billion term loan. an attractive rate, and provides flexibility important and transformational transaction
The term loan was upsized in syndication for deleveraging over time. SES has also for SES. The bridge facility provides SES
on the back of a strong response from the agreed to a two-year extension of the €1.2 with financing flexibility from a capital
bank group. The bridge facility serves to billion revolving credit facility (signed 26 markets issuance perspective while the
provide financing certainty and flexibility in June 2019) thereby maintaining a fully term loan serves as a source of long-term
the issuance of bonds. The bridge facility committed back-up liquidity facility up to financing.”
has tenor of 12 months and is extendable 26 June 2028 with a group of 19 banks.

SES Space & Defense Demonstrates First Multi-Orbit, Multi-Band Commer-
cial LEO Relay

SES Space & Defense, a wholly-owned sub- the hardware, data flow and the end-to-end the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite Sys-
sidiary of SES announced the successful system performance as well as success- tem (TDRSS) to commercial systems for
demonstration of the first multi-orbit, multi- fully reduced flight hardware and services its space relay requirements while helping
band commercial space relay service in risk. Throughout the testing process, the create a commercial market for space re-
support of the NASA Communications Ser- performance of Planet’s flight modem lay. In late 2023, SES Space & Defense al-
vices Project (CSP). To demonstrate data correlated with expectations, achieving ready demonstrated Telemetry, Tracking
relay services, SES Space & Defense part- link budgets that consistently aligned with and Commanding (TT&C) relay services
nered with Planet Labs (Planet), the leading predicted results. The demonstrations sup- through ground testing of a C-band “al-
provider of global daily Earth data using port NASA’s Funded Space Act Agreement, ways on” channel. This was accomplished
SES’s O3b mPOWER satellite constellation which enables commercial space relay via through Planet’s LEO flight-ready C-band
in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) and Planet’s Geostationary (GEO) C-band and Medium terminal and SES’s C-band GEO global
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) flight-representative Earth Orbit (MEO) Ka-band satellites to beams. “With this end-to-end test and
terminal. SES Space & Defense and Planet spacecraft in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The demonstration of capabilities, we were able
demonstrated a stable data link, validating initiative allows for NASA’s transition from to successfully showcase a complete data
flow through our LEO Relay System (LRS)
service,” said David Fields, President and
CEO, SES Space & Defense. “The data mea-
surement results validated our multi-band
commercial space relay service, set the
stage for the flight demonstration as the
next step, and for the future launch of the
operational service offering. We are excep-
tionally proud of all involved in developing a
multi-orbit, multi-band space relay for both
government and commercial LEO opera-
tors as NASA’s TDRS system retires.”
55 MAY-JUNE 2024