11/3/2022

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Hello and welcome to the SES Year-to-Date 2022 Results 9 Months Ended 30th of September 2022 Call. Please note this call is being recorded. You will be in a listen-only mode throughout the call and have the opportunity to ask questions at the end. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question. I will now hand you over to your host, Richard Whiting, Head of Investor Relations. To begin today's conference, please go ahead.

speaker
Richard Whiting
Head of Investor Relations

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining this analyst and investor call for our results. Nine months ended 30 September 2022. This morning's presentation was uploaded along with the press release to the investor section at the website at SES.com if you don't already have it. And as always, please note the disclaimer at the back of the documents. In a moment, Steve Collar, our CEO, will present the main business highlights, followed by Sandeep Jalan, our CFO, to cover the financials in a bit more detail. After some closing remarks from Steve, we will take questions. With that, I hand over to Steve.

speaker
Steve Collar
Chief Executive Officer

Great. Thanks, Richard. Good morning, everyone. I will start on page three of the deck with the highlights of another quarter of strong execution across the business and robust year-to-date financial performance. Revenue stands at €1.4 billion, and EBITDA at $829 million year-to-date. These numbers include the first contributions from DRS GES business, which we acquired at the beginning of August and is now integrated as part of an expanded SES government solutions business. Excluding GES, both revenue and adjusted EBITDA are fully in line with our expectations and consistent with the outlook that we provided at the beginning of the year. Our networks business is continuing to grow at 4% this quarter versus last year and almost 3% year-to-date, mobility being the standout performer with cruise and aviation and commercial maritime all posting strong growth. On the video side, we're also executing well with a number of long-term renewals signed at our core neighborhoods, pricing stable to increasing, and almost all video renewals secured for the end of the year. Turning to our growth drivers, SES17 has been in service now since June, and that's translating backlog into reported revenue as our anchor customer, Thales, transitions aircraft from our bridge network onto the satellite. Feedback on the service performance continues to be strong. We have excellent commercial momentum in our fixed data segment, with 13 customers signed across eight countries in the Americas, driven by enterprise and rural inclusion. I'm super excited to announce that our first O3BM power launch is now locked in for the 15th of December, with the first two satellites completing their final checks ahead of dispatch to the launch base at the end of this month. The performance that we've measured on the ground is stunning and will transform our ability to deliver unique carrier-grade connectivity to a significantly expanded customer base. With two further launches planned in Q1 next year, we expect to begin services with the sixth satellite constellation in Q3 2023, Importantly, the first O3B Empower gateways are already commissioned, and the full ground technology stack has been deployed on the current O3B constellation, allowing us to start deploying enhanced MEO services to existing customers in early 2023. The combined gross backlog for SES17 and O3B Empower now stands at $955 million, an increase year-on-year of 22%, and that despite the fact that SES17 is now operational and consuming backlog. We have a strong deal pipeline and expect to sign further deals for both SES17 and OVBN Power in the coming quarters. And lastly, I couldn't be happier with where we are on C-band, having made great strides in the last quarter. We now have SES20, 21, and 22 in orbit following the successful dual launch in October of 2021. And these three satellites allow us to proceed with the installation of filters that will protect our customers' networks and clear the lower portion of the C-band spectrum. We're probably two months ahead of where we expected to be, and have direct line of sight to the $3 billion in clearing proceeds that we will earn as a result of successful second phase clearing. As announced previously, we've also separately agreed with Verizon to implement additional clearing for them, and that activity is also nearing completion. As a result, we expect to receive $155 million before the end of the year, with the balance to come in early 2023. So turning to page four and more detail on the performance of our networks business. As I mentioned, mobility is rebounding strongly following recovery from COVID with both aviation and cruise businesses performing well. Fixed data and enterprise is also up year on year with the increasing influence from data networks being built on SES 17. Government is lower year on year with the rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan in Q3 last year impacting the comparison but some very good news with the renewal of our Trojan network in the middle of the year supporting the Army, a significant win in the CSSC2 re-compete for the Navy secured by the government team as a major subcontractor to Inmarsat, and seven re-compete task orders and new business contracts secured with government end users over the last two months alone. As promised last time, we're also now showing contribution from the acquisition of DRS GES, 32 million euros in revenue in the two months since completion of the acquisition. And with the combined businesses already operating under a single management team, we're also starting to deliver on the synergies expected from the combination. Finally, on this page, we furthered our multi-orbit credentials, underlining the use of the right orbit for the right application. with the announcement in September that we're working with the European Commission, ESA, the Luxembourg government, and more than 20 other agencies and companies across Europe to deliver the Eagle One project, a low-Earth orbit system aimed at the development and demonstration of quantum key distribution technologies. In an environment where secure connectivity and data sovereignty is paramount, this project highlights SES's capabilities in delivering an ambitious sovereign network to deliver innovative and advanced secure communications to Europe. The Eagle 1 satellite will launch in 2024 and then complete three years of in-orbit demonstrations supported by the European Commission. And during this operational phase, the satellite will allow European Union governments and institutions early access to long-distance, ultra-secure data transmissions important in the context of the EU's wider space ambitions. Now turning to video on page five and performance fully in line with expectations, Revenues are down 5.6% year-on-year, including the termination payment from Nordic Entertainment booked in Q1, which keeps us whole from a revenue perspective in the Nordic region for 2022. The end of our wholesale agreement with Dish in the US in November last year is the other key driver in the year-on-year comparisons and will wash through by the end of this year. And excluding these two one-off type impacts, the core business run rate is more like 3% down year-on-year. Pricing on renewals continues to be stable to increasing, reflecting the pricing power earned from having the largest video neighborhoods in the industry and leading penetration of high definition. More than 20% of our video contracts and revenues benefit from indexation clauses. And as I've said previously, we've got a lot of good work done earlier in the year with 230 million of renewals and new business added to backlog so far in 2022. The performance of our consumer business HD plus in Germany has been robust and helped by the price increases that we implemented in March this year and the launch of our HD plus IP and HD plus to go products. We're staying vigilant to consumer trends in Germany with a broader macroeconomic climate worsening while looking ahead to the Winter World Cup to lend support. A tailwind for us in video has been the introduction of a new sports and events pan-European distribution platform at our core neighbourhood at 19.2 East. And this has already generated traction with almost all of our traditional sports and events customers, particularly for news. And I expect this platform to factor in the modest growth projections for our sports and events businesses or business going forward. So then briefly on to page six, and as I mentioned already, you can see the evidence in graphical form of the success that we're having with the SES-17 satellite across the Americas with deals in most regions and opportunities being pursued and close to closing in others. With the first O2BM power launch a little more than a month away and starts of service in Q3 2023 with the six satellite constellation, preparations on the ground are moving ahead at a fast pace. The first gateway has already been activated with others to follow in the coming months. Small, high-performance, affordable customer terminals are fully validated on the network and are shipping to customers as we speak. And we'll begin deploying the O3B Empower service environment from early in the new year in our O3B Empower Classic, sorry, the O3B Classic constellations. One other important milestone this month was the first end-to-end validation of our Arc system, the space brain for O2D Empower, and also at the heart of our multi-orbit architecture. Arc will deliver massive operational efficiency in deploying power and bandwidth across the system, monitoring performance, and adjusting power and bandwidth autonomously. The combined backlog continues to progress nicely, standing at 955 million, not only reflecting a positive quarter-on-quarter performance, but a double-digit year-on-year performance, and that despite SES 17 consuming backlog. Finally, from me on page seven, we've added more tech ticks, as promised, in a year of incredible execution for SES, and look forward to showing you the final version at our year-end results with this page fully completed. And 2022 really is a landmark year for us, providing the critical platform to secure our industry-leading balance sheet through the delivery of more than $3 billion in CBAN proceeds, while the launch of SES17 and O3D Empower establishes the platform for profitable long-term growth, fueled by next-generation multi-orbit network architecture that's differentiated from any other on the market, delivering carrier-grade services and solutions that no one else in the market can support. So with that, I'll hand over to Sandeep.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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