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Ses Sa Glbl Fid Dep Shs
5/5/2022
Hello and welcome to the SES Q1 2022 results call. My name is Jess and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on Zoom only. However, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to your host, Richard Whiting, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's call. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining this analyst and investor call for our Q1 results. This morning's presentation was uploaded along with the press release to the investor section at ses.com if you don't already have it. And as always, please note the disclaimer at the back of the document. In a moment, Steve Collar, our CEO, will present the main business highlights, followed by Sandeep Jalan, CFO, to gather the financials in a little bit more detail. After some closing remarks from Steve, we'll be happy to take your questions. With that, let me hand over to Steve.
Very good. Thank you, Richard, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning. I'm going to start on page three with the main highlights and a side Q1 and a strong start to 2022. In the first quarter, we generated revenues of almost €450 million and EBITDA of €274 million. Both are fully in line with our expectations and consistent with the delivery of our full-year outlook. Our continued focus on APEX and cost control contributed to a 17% improvement in net profit, while in April we returned €220 million of cash to shareholders in the form of a 25% increase in our dividend. 2022 is a big year of delivery and execution across a number of long-term value drivers for SES, and we've achieved a number of important milestones already in the quarter. SES-17, the largest and most capable geostationary satellite that we've ever launched, is now on station above the Americas. The mission today has been flawless, with all deployments successfully completed, and now we're undergoing final in-orbit testing before starting service in mid-June, a little earlier than previously communicated. Good progress also with O2BM Power, our transformational medium earth orbit constellation. The satellites are progressing well through the factory and we've increased our launch cadence in the second half of the year within our existing CapEx envelope to accommodate slightly later deliveries of the satellites themselves. Commercial momentum continues to build for both of these assets, with the combined gross backlog up 20% year-on-year, an increasing roster of major global telcos, cruise lines, service partners, and cloud companies signing. And more broadly, we've seen good deal flow and momentum in our networks business in the first few months of the year. We're extremely pleased with the acquisition of DRS Global Enterprise Solutions that we announced in March. Combining DRS-GES with our existing SESGS business will double our government business and enable us to serve U.S. government customers with an expanded set of connectivity solutions, leveraging our unique multi-orbit fleet at a time where we'll be bringing the extraordinary new powerful capability in the form of O3VM power to market. And lastly, with respect to USC-BAN, things are going extremely well in the second phase clearing. Our first CBAN satellite is now on the way to the launch base with a confirmed launch date at the very end of this quarter and others following shortly behind. We're well on track to achieve our second phase clearing milestone by the end of 2023 and earn the remaining accelerated relocation payment of $3 billion. While we've created substantial additional value for SES, through the clearing agreement with Verizon in a deal worth up to $170 million that we expect to earn over the course of 2022. So with that, I'll move fairly rapidly through the remaining slides and on page four, a closer look at our video business. The most significant news in our video business is undoubtedly the important renewal and extension of business with Sky UK in a deal valued at 85 million euros on the back of a 90 million euro deal that we announced last year. We serve 365 million households to our video platforms, and it's these neighborhoods built over decades that deliver our customers the most valuable content in the most reliable and cost-effective way. This deal extends our business with Sky towards the end of the decade, with backlog in video standing at a health rate of €3 billion. The trajectory of our video business continues to improve with revenue down 2.6% year on year, including a termination payment from Nordic Entertainment that keeps us whole from a revenue perspective in the Nordic region in 2022. The end of our wholesale agreement with Dish US on Ketsat late last year, transitioning to a significant renewal directly with Dish Mexico, is the other key driver in year-on-year comparisons. And when excluding both the impacts of US wholesale and NENT, the one-off termination payment from NENT, our underlying video business is down 4% year-on-year. We carry an industry-leading number of HD TV channels with QVC being the latest example of a long-term customer leveraging our broad neighborhood reach and upgrading their services to high definition. Pricing remains robust in all of our core markets reflecting the significant value that we create for our customers through our reach and our market penetration. Finally in Germany, our HD plus consumer platform continues its good momentum from last year and is now truly multi-platform following the launch of HD plus IP and HD plus to go. So now to networks on page five and we saw a good rebound in mobility from this time last year, up close to 10% year on year with our cruise business growing nicely and aviation also showing a positive track. Government year-on-year was dragged down by the rapid withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan, but excluding this, our network's revenue is actually ahead by low single-digit percentage year-on-year, sustaining the positive performance that we saw in the second half of last year. The quarter was characterized by sustained and positive deal flow across all network segments that, while not necessarily showing up in the numbers as yet, support our growth outlook for the year for networks. In our government business, our support for a number of defense forces in Ukraine and surrounds will provide momentum in the second half, while in the U.S., we've won an important re-compete that will anchor U.S. government revenues for the year. The recent announced award from NASA is an exciting opportunity for us to develop and showcase the unique capabilities of O3BM power as a critical communications relay, a new use case, and one that leverages our unique position as the only operator in medium Earth orbit. Equally, in our fixed data business, we've continued to build our commercial appeal with telcos and mobile network operators, notably across Asia and the Americas, in extending their reach with terrestrial quality solutions. In fixed data, we've signed deals with ComNet and SSI, both on SES17, ComClark for educational services in the Philippines, and expanded our cloud capabilities by becoming a FastNet Connect partner with direct access to Oracle Cloud. Our partnership with Microsoft as a key enabler of O3V Empower is growing with a number of agreements supporting ground station as a service, while the landmark partnership with Reliance Jio announced last quarter across our Jio and Mio assets has now been memorialized in the signing of the joint venture. And so then finally on page six and our key strategic value creation drivers, we've made really good progress with more green ticks being added to the chart as we promised you last time. Getting SES-17 on orbit and entering into service a little ahead of schedule is significant, and we've secured an important time to market advantage versus other high throughput satellites to be launched into the Americas over the next few years. For O3BM Power, we've been able to accommodate an increased launch cadence with no impact on our overall CapEx envelope. In moving to three launches instead of two for the first six satellites, we've optimized our time to orbit and we've been able to accommodate a slightly later delivery of the satellites to the launch base. Importantly, we still expect to be in service and generating revenue on O3BM Power from the beginning of 2023. Two important additions to the chart in the quarter with the acquisition of DRS GES, which we expect to complete during the second half of the year, and the important additional CBAN clearing that we'll conduct with Verizon or for Verizon in a deal that's worth up to $170 million for SES, most of which we expect to receive during the course of 2022. We continue to execute really well with the second phase of C-band clearing. Our first new C-band satellite will be in orbit by the next time we speak, and we're well on track to achieve full clearing before the end of 2023, triggering the remaining accelerated relocation payment of US$3 billion. And with that, I'll hand over to Sandy for the financial highlights.
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