2/26/2025

speaker
Laura
Conference Coordinator

Hello and welcome to the FES Full Year 2024 results. My name is Laura and I will be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call is being recorded and for the duration of the call your lines will be on listen only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero and you will be connected to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Richard Whiting, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Thank you.

speaker
Richard Whiting
Head of Investor Relations

Thanks, Laura. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining this analyst and investor call for our full year 2024 financial results. The presentation was uploaded along with the press release to the investor section at ses.com if you don't already have it. As always, please note the disclaimer at the front of the slides. The agenda today is as usual. In a moment, Adel Al-Saleh, CEO, will present the main business highlights, followed by Sandeep Jalan, CFO, to cover the financials in more detail. After some closing remarks from Adel, we will happily take your questions. With that, I'll hand over to Adel.

speaker
Adel Al-Saleh
CEO

Thank you, Richard. Good morning, everyone. Starting with the highlights on page number three, I'm pleased to announce a strong year of operational performance, thanks to our evolved strategy, our ongoing transformation, and the laser focus and execution. We are fully delivered on our outlook, stabilizing top-line trajectory supported by a wave of strategic wins and strong commercial success, showcasing the growing demand for our differentiated solutions. This was a landmark year for our Empower MEO constellation, It entered commercial service. We'll be increasing Empower capacity in sizable steps starting in April this year, followed by another step in 2026 and another step in first half 2027. These increases in capacity will accelerate revenue ramp up of our well sold out neoconstellation. Year 2024 is also a landmark year with concession award of Iris Square project which will drive the next generation of our MEO growth towards the end of this decade. I'm pleased to report that the regulatory process to complete the transformational and value-creative Intelsat acquisition is fully on track. We have detailed plans for high conviction synergies and reaffirming our previously communicated financial objectives for the combined company. Looking at the financial highlights on page number four. 2024 revenue stable year-on-year and at the top end of our financial outlook at over 2 billion euros, reflecting strong operational execution led by third consecutive year of our network's growth. Our 2024 adjusted EBITDA exceeded our expectations and our 2024 outlook, going above 1 billion euro marked by 30 million euros, delivering 1% growth year-on-year. This was supported by solid performance with 3% year-on-year growth in our networks business and nearly 9% reduction in our controllable operational expenses as we continue to transform and drive operational excellence throughout the business. Adjusted free cash flow was €253 million, with €684 million generated in the last two years and remains a key differentiator within our industry. In 2024, we continue to secure our future growth by securing over 1.4 billion euros of renewals and new customer contracts supporting our sizable gross backlog of 4.8 billion euros. Our net leverage remains at 1.5 times, including 3.2 billion euros of cash and cash equivalents. We continue to maintain a sector-leading investment-grade balance sheet and have delivered 450 million euros of cash returns to our shareholders during 2024, including the interim dividend and share buyback. Moving on to the vertical performance, starting with our network business on page number five, where we have demonstrated our ability to win with our differentiated multi-orbit offerings, which supports our continued growth for the third consecutive years in a row. Our government business is up by more than 6% year-on-year, driven by expansion in both the U.S. and global government revenues. Our mobility business is up 7% year-on-year, with double-digit growth in aviation and complemented by higher revenue in cruise, where we extended our overall portfolio with nearly 50 new cruise activations during the year. Due to the capacity constraints of our current O3B Empire fleet, we could not offer enough capacity to our fixed data customers. And due to the competitive nature of the segment, our fixed data business is down by 8.7% year on year. Overall, our network business secured 760 million of renewals and new deals. Finally, Network's gross backlog stood at 2.6 billion euros, showcasing the growing demand for our managed multi-orbit solutions, which have allowed the strong winds this year, which I will elaborate on in a few minutes. Starting with our government business on number six, where we grew 6.4% year-on-year, driven by the expansion in both U.S. and global government businesses. Secure and sophisticated satellite-based solutions with multi-orbit applications are an increasingly critical component to fulfill government requirements, and we are a trusted partner in the area as shown with the important 200 million NATO MGS contract and the U.S.-European Command Blank Purchase Agreement and IRIS Square contract awards. The NATO MGS contract is the first government commitment to empower which will consume much of the total near-term capacity to provide secure, resilient, and high-performance MEO connectivity for NATO members. The contract is for an initial three years with the option to be extended by two more years. This is also the first contract within the partnership between NATO, Luxembourg, and the U.S., which makes it easier for NATO allies and partners to participate in a multinational and multi-year procurement. realizing synergies and economies of scale. The U.S.-European Command-Blank Purchase Agreement is a multi-year commitment with a ceiling value of 117 million U.S. dollars, where SES will deliver multi-orbit and multi-band satellite capabilities to U.S. EUCOM that will allow for greater network resilience and flexibility required for mission success in the responsibility of the region. This was one of many U.S. government contracts secured during the year, which also included $47 million with U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, U.S. Agency for Global Media, and most recently, a $90 million award from U.S. Army. Finally, and perhaps most instrumental contract award this year, and one I'm very proud of, is the Strategic IRIS Square Secure Sovereign Government Connectivity Tender. The 12-year concession contract of Iris Square will allow us to expand SES differentiated Mio offering to keep pace with a rapidly expanding demand where we're constrained today. And it gives us access to Leo constellation with owner economics when needed. It further strengthened our offering by delivering a truly global Mio experience of guaranteed high throughput and low latency connectivity anywhere on land, at sea, or in the air. including the pulse, further expanding our total addressable market. We have started the project with focus on confirming schedule, pricing, and technical requirements by rendezvous one in less than 12 months. Our focus is to execute the contract within the framework of our financial policy, delivering IRR above our 10% threshold as announced back in December. Throughout the year, we have had many significant wins. On page seven, we're just listing a few other notable government wins, including US Department of Defense, Luxembourg government, and several others. Moving to page eight, and our mobility business, which is up more than 7% year on year, including the periodic revenue booked in Q1. With double digit growth in aviation, as we win new airlines such as Thai Airways, Turkish Airways, complemented by new cruise customers like Virgin Voyages and Resorts World Cruises. First, I'd highlight our notable wins in the aviation business, with the first airline customer secured by our open orbits partnership. We and our partners provide seamless multi-orbit connectivity across the skies with uninterrupted coverage from east to west. and delivering internet speeds of up to 300 megabits per second. Thai Airways, the national carrier of Thailand, will become the first airline in Southeast Asia, while Turkish Airlines will integrate open orbits on its new fleet and have seamless connectivity over geo and NGSOs in their aircraft. At the same time, Our wholesale offering continues to grow, and I'm delighted to say we have recently secured a major strategic capacity agreement just a couple of days ago for SCF17 with over 100 million euros in contract value. In cruise, we're continuing to expand our portfolio of business, which now stands at over 100 ocean ships with major brands like Carnival, MSC, Virgin, Resort World Cruises, and others. Virgin this year was the first cruise operator to use SES Cruise M-Power plus Starlink PRO offer, which signals we have truly entered a new era for multi-orbit connectivity solutions. Our continued success in cruise with sustained demand from new builds showcases our strong position in this segment thanks to our offering of fully integrated end-to-end service that uses multiple orbits including NEO-based solution as the cornerstone of their passenger connectivity experience. It's successes like these that have driven our continued growth and 7% year-on-year growth in mobility, and which will drive our future expected growth in both cruise and aviation, where our ability to deliver managed multi-orbit solution is a source of strength, anchoring our right to win even in a competitive segment. Last but not least, I'd like to talk about our wins in fixed data on page number nine. Fixed data delivered minus 8% year on year. Comparison is impacted by some periodic revenue last year in 2023. However, despite our capacity constraints, especially in the last few quarters, second half of 2024 was up 8% year on year compared to the first half of 2024. As we increase our ability, our available capacity on the MPower, we expect fixed data to continue to improve in 2025. This is backed by new contract when such as the agreement with Brazil, in Brazil with Telebras, under the federal government initiative promoting digital inclusion across Brazil. We deliver much needed high speed connectivity to our SCS-17 geosatellite to underserved areas across northern Brazil. I'm excited to talk about a new deal with DBSat Energy, which is the first to bring new services and empower to the Asian Pacific region where SES will provide sophisticated connectivity solutions to support and enhance offshore operations to a floating production storage and offloading vessel. Equally, The multi-year contract with Orange to connect remote territories in the Wallace and Fortuna Islands where Empower will bring digital connectivity to thousands of people in underserved regions where fiber connectivity is scarce or nonexistent. On Page 10 are some more notable wins in our mobility and fixed data businesses. Moving to Page 11 and our high cash generated media business, which continues to perform as per our expectations, delivering minus 5.3% decline in the year in line with our mid-single-digit guidance. With Sable Dock Market, which serves 18 million direct-to-home households with multi-year contracts with major public and private broadcasters such as Sky, RTL, Warner Brothers, Discovery, and a double-digit expansion in our biggest performer, sports and events, we have booked more than more Tier 1 global brands. This growth was offset by continued declines in other markets. We have secured €615 million of renewals and new agreements, underscoring the significant cash flow generation of our video business and contributing to our gross backlog of €2.1 billion, including several important multi-year renewals. The revenue and operational performance reflect the robust fundamentals of this business and solid customer base and customer demand. On page 12, I'm glad to be able to tell you more about some important wins this year. The multi-year, multi-transponder deal with Sky extends delivery to the end of the decade, providing the reliability they need to continue delivering the best TV content and demonstrating the sustained relevance of our satellite offering for media applications. Secondly, I'm proud to announce a tier one sports brand. ATP has chosen SES to broadcast its 58 tennis tournaments this year, which will reach over 1 billion fans across the globe to over 70 broadcasting partners. This is a massive reach for SES broadcasting services and allows ATP to have an easy to use centralized platform to manage and deliver its content. optimizing their capabilities, and providing the best-in-class customer viewing experience for tennis fans of all ages. And lastly, I'm happy to confirm a multi-year contract extension with Perseverance Satellite One, which will continue to distribute across Germany and Austria in our valuable and cash-generated 19.2 degrees east neighborhood. These and the other ones we have announced throughout the year continue to support the future of our media business. and the importance of satellite broadcasting for our media customers. As we continue expanding our services to a comprehensive approach in the media service market by combining our traditional capacity business and added ground services and managing more of the distribution chain to reduce complexity for our customers. Page 13 shows just a few other notable media wins this year, including RTL and Warner Brothers Discovery and others. Moving to page 14, and the deployment and deployment of our O3B Empower constellation that will sustain revenue over the next several years. The entry of Empower into commercial services earlier this year was a key milestone for SCS, with customers now on board and benefiting from our MEO offering. Q4 was an important quarter. We have made further ground installation and onboarded even more customers into our Neo constellation. And where we have launched satellite seven and satellite eight. They're now making their orbit raising phase, which will add meaningful and much needed incremental capacity. Based on our learning throughout 2024, we're going to increase empow capacity in a few steps. Step one, will happen at the end of Q1 when Satellites 7 and 8 enter service, followed by another step after Satellites 9, 10, and 11 launch and start service, and final step after Satellites 12 and 13 are in orbit. These are significant capacity increases for our Empower constellation. From 2027 onward, we will operate a powerful constellation with seven fully capable satellites, supplemented by the initial satellites we launched. A key advances of operating in MEO is inherent scalability of the network, allowing us to incrementally add a small number of satellites on a regular basis. This ensures capacity grows in line with customer demand while maintaining a healthy balance between supply and demand, all in a CapEx efficient manner. Each new satellite strengthen the constellation. enhancing overall capacity and network efficiency to support a profitable long term growth trajectory. Meanwhile, I was square is very well time to enter service by 2030. At that point, the empire constellation expected to reach steady state their operation. Together, they will enable us to meet expanding demand well into the next decade. Additionally, Iris Square will extend coverage beyond Empower Reach, unlocking new opportunities for meal-based services in regions that were previously inaccessible, including seamless pole-to-pole coverage. Finally, an update on our transformational agreement to acquire Intelsat on page 15. On the regulatory front, we're making good progress. We have secured additional regulatory clearances since November. Although these are relatively small clearances, it is nonetheless encouraging and underpins our conviction in closing the deal. Closing of the acquisition remains on track to complete during second half 2025. Now with the detailed integration plan validated by both teams to deliver conviction case synergies of 2.4 billion euros NPV and the execution timeline of 70% by the end of third year, after the day one with an opportunity to accelerate it to accelerate our timeline while respecting all other all the legal and regulatory requirements we continue to operate fully independently we reiterate our combined company financial objectives which we have announced back in april 2024 upon the transaction announcement the combined multi-orbit company will be strategically positioned to compete with comprehensive end-to-end solutions in high-value and high-growth markets. In the past few weeks, we've undertaken a review of the latest projections, and all financial objectives are fully validated and reiterated, supported by strong balance sheet fundamentals and sustained cash flow growth. This combination will create a formidable competitor with a financial strength to invest in the future opportunities while preserving our investment-grade metrics and delivering attractive returns to shareholders. In addition, I'm sure many of you have seen the FCC's draft notice of inquiry proposal for future C-band clearances. FCC's objective is to move fast in clearing additional C-band spectrum. We will cooperate with FCC to support their objective. while ensuring that the best outcome for our clients in North America and for us as well. With that, I'll hand over to Sandeep to take you through the financial highlights.

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