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SES (company)

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SES S.A.
Company typeSociété Anonyme
LuxSE: SESG
NYSE Euronext: SESG
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded1985
HeadquartersChâteau de Betzdorf, Betzdorf, Luxembourg
Key people
René Steichen (Chairman), Karim Michel Sabbagh (President and CEO)
ProductsSatellite telecommunications and services
Revenue€1.828 billion (2012)[1]
€790.5 million (2012)[1]
€648.8 million (2012)[1]
Total assets€9.001 billion (end 2012)[1]
Total equity€2.886 billion (including non-controlling interests, end 2012)[1]
Number of employees
1,257 (FTE, end 2012)[1]
Websitewww.ses.com

SES S.A. is a global satellite owner and operator based in Betzdorf, Luxembourg and is listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris under the ticker symbol SESG. It is a component of the LuxX, CAC Next 20 and Euronext 100 indices.

SES is the world’s second-largest telecommunications satellite operator by revenue[2] and operates a fleet of 54[3] geostationary satellites able to reach 99% of the World’s population.[4] These satellites provide satellite communication services to businesses and government agencies, and broadcast TV and radio channels to audiences worldwide. SES satellites carry more than 6,200 TV channels (including over 1800 in high definition)[5] and more than 40 direct-to-home (DTH) platforms across the world. By the end of 2013, SES satellites reached 291 million TV homes worldwide, comprising 106 million DTH satellite homes, over 153 million cable homes and over 32 million IPTV homes.[6]

Originally founded in 1985 as Société Européenne des Satellites, the company was renamed SES Global in 2001 and in 2006 renamed SES.

SES is one of the global market leaders of satellite communications services and a pioneer in many important industry developments. SES pioneered DTH transmission, free-to-air broadcast neighbourhoods and co-location of satellites, digital broadcasting, and HDTV.[7] In 2007 SES was named ‘Satellite Operator of the Year’[8] and in 2002 the then CEO, Romain Bausch was awarded ‘Satellite Executive of the Year’.[9]

Corporate structure

Group structure of SES (Numbers in brackets indicate percentage of participation)[10]
SES
Major regional participations
Ciel (70%) Quetzsat (49%) Yalive (35%) O3b Networks (46.88%)
Satellite service companies
SES Government Solutions (100%) SES Platform Services (100%) SES Broadband Services (100%) SES Techcom Services (100%) HD+ (100%)

Corporate management

In May 2011 SES announced that it was operating under a new "streamlined" management structure to consolidate the then subsidiary companies, SES Astra and SES World Skies under one Executive Committee responsible for running the day-to-day operations as well as for preparing the decisions of the Board of Directors.[11] The SES Executive Committee comprises:

  • Karim Michel Sabbagh – President and CEO
  • Padraig McCarthy – Chief Financial Officer
  • Martin Halliwell – Chief Technology Officer
  • Ferdinand Kayser – Chief Commercial Officer
  • Gerson Souto – Chief Development Officer

SES services

Through its operating companies and participations, SES provides satellite transmission capacity and related services to media broadcasters and businesses, as well for civil government and military communications. SES satellites transmit a variety of formats from radio to High Definition TV, (HDTV) in MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. SES has been a major player in the development of the direct-to-home market in Europe and the cable TV and DBS markets in the U.S..

In Europe, SES pioneered the introduction of HDTV and has been instrumental in defining HDTV standards with the HD ready specification and label. In the U.S., SES provides cable-feed services and HD-PRIME, the U.S.' largest satellite-based HD channel platform.[4] SES has forayed into 3DTV with the recent launches of demonstration channels.[12][13]

SES is currently pioneering the broadcast of next generation Ultra High Definition TV (UHD) and helping to establish the international technical standards for UHD broadcast and reception. SES first produced demonstration UHD broadcasts in 2012 and transmitted the first HEVC-standard UHD TV in 2013.[14] A continuous SES UHD demonstration channel is broadcast to Europe from SES’ Astra 19.2°E satellite position.[15][16]

SES supplies the SES Broadband (previously ASTRA2Connect) satellite-based, broadband internet access for maritime and residential users in remote locations where terrestrial broadband services are not available.[17] SES supplies satellite capacity to governments for the delivery of video, internet, voice and data to government agencies.[4]

SES is active in the Hosted payload market, selling space on planned and under construction satellites to governments and institutions, including the U.S. government,[18] and for the European geostationary navigation overlay system EGNOS a supplementary network to the Galileo navigation system.[19]

History

Early years

SES was formed on the initiative and support of the Luxembourg Government in 1985 as Société Européenne des Satellites (SES). The Luxembourg State remains a major shareholder. In 1988, as Europe’s first private satellite operator, SES launched its first satellite, Astra 1A, to the 19.2° east orbital position. Rupert Murdoch’s Sky TV, along with German broadcasters Pro7, Sat.1, and RTL were among Astra’s first major customers.[7]

By 1990, Astra was broadcasting to 14 million cable and DTH viewers. SES was the pioneer of ‘co-location’ by which several satellites share the same orbital position to provide mutual backup and increase the number of channels available to a fixed receiving dish, creating what became known as a 'satellite neighbourhood'. Astra's prime slot, 19.2° east, saw as many as eight satellites sharing the position simultaneously and helped to build up Astra’s reputation for reliability.[7]

Rapid growth in Germany, in what would become Astra’s largest European market, was helped by the German government’s decision to liberalize the installation of dishes in 1991. In this time SES became the leading satellite system providing direct-to-home transmission, and became the world’s largest satellite platform for TV distribution.

In 1996, after the launch of Astra 1E, SES pioneered digital satellite transmission with the French Canal+. In 1998, SES launched Astra 2A for the UK market, transmitting at the new orbital position 28.2° east, and eventually moving all of its UK and Ireland transmission capacity to this orbital slot.

In the same year, SES went public on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange trading as SESG (in 2005 SES would also list on the Paris Euronext).

Global expansion

From 1999 SES began a period of ambitious global expansion beyond its European home market. Geographic expansion went hand-in-hand with the diversification of SES’ services beyond just TV broadcasting, to cover telecommunication services for businesses, telecommunications companies and government customers, as well as broadband access and technical consultancy services.

In 1999, SES acquired a 34.13% stake in Hong Kong-based satellite operator AsiaSat and took a foothold in Asia and the Pacific region.[7] A year later, SES acquired 50% of Scandinavian satellite broadcaster Nordic Satellite AB (NSAB),[20] later renamed SES Sirius, which strengthened SES’ coverage in northern and eastern Europe. The same year, SES also took a participation of 19.99% in Brazilian satellite operator Star One, gaining a first presence in Latin America.

In 2001, SES bought 28.75% of Argentina’s Nahuelsat and acquired GE Americom, giving it a solid presence in the important North American market. This resulted in the formation of SES Global, a corporate entity with two operating companies, SES Astra and SES Americom. Altogether, SES operated a fleet of 41 geostationary satellites, the largest in the world in 2001.[21]

Further acquisitions followed. In 2003 SES’ stake in NSAB was increased to 75%[22] and in 2005 SES acquired a participation in Canadian satellite operator Ciel and in Mexico’s QuetzSat, as well as the divestment from Nahuelsat.

SES acquired services provider, Digital Playout Centre GmbH (later Astra Platform Services, now SES Platform Services) in 2005.[7] and in 2006 SES also acquired ND SatCom, a German provider of government services,[23] developing a services portfolio beyond just bandwidth provision.

Also in 2006, SES acquired New Skies Satellites, later renamed SES New Skies, adding six satellites to the SES fleet and strengthening coverage in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.[24]

In 2007 SES divested from its holdings in AsiaSat and Star One in a complex transaction with General Electric which itself divested from SES.[25]

In 2008, SES increased its stake in NSAB to 90%.[26] and merged its two international operating units, SES Americom and SES New Skies into a new segment which was branded SES World Skies in September 2009.[27]

In 2009, SES and Middle East satellite operator Yahsat announced the formation of a joint venture, YahLive to commercialise 23 Ku-band transponders on Yahsat 1A, serving the Middle East, North Africa and South-West Asia with direct-to-home TV services.[28] Also in 2009, SES announced its investment in O3b Networks a project to build a Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellation to deliver high-speed, low-latency, fibre-like internet broadband trunking to the world's emerging regions (“the Other 3 billion”).[29]

In 2010, SES grew its stake in SES Sirius to 100%[30] and closed the acquisition of the in-orbit satellite Protostar-2, renaming it SES-7 and integrating it into its fleet covering India and South East Asia.[31]

In May and September 2011, SES restructured and rebranded the company to streamline the organisation’s activities under a single management team and one main brand (SES), incorporating the company’s two previous operating entities, SES Astra and SES World Skies.[32][11]

Global operator

In August 2011 the Astra 1N satellite was launched to the Astra 28.2°E orbital position,[33] and in September the QuetzSat 1 satellite was launched to 77°W[34]

In February 2012, SES-4 was successfully launched to become SES' 50th satellite and the largest, heaviest and most powerful in the fleet.[35] In July 2012, SES-5, the 51st SES Satellite was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan to 5°E with 36 Ku-band transponders to provide coverage over Sub-Saharan Africa and the Nordic and the Baltic regions in Europe, and 28 C-band transponders for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.[36]

In September 2012, Astra 2F was successfully launched from Kourou in French Guiana, the first of three "next generation" satellites at the second Astra orbital position at 28.2°E. The satellite has Ku-band coverage of all Europe, the British Isles and sub-Saharan Africa for DTH television, and Ka-band coverage of Central Europe for the SES Broadband satellite internet service.[37]

SES-6 was launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on June 3, 2013 to 40.5°E, to replace NSS-806 and provide continuity of service and expansion capacity in C-band for Latin America and the Caribbean. The satellite has 43 C-band and 48 Ku-band transponders with comprehensive coverage of North America, Latin America, Europe and the Atlantic Ocean.[38]

Recent events

Astra 2E was launched to the Astra 28.2°E position from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on September 30, 2013 to provide free-to-air and encrypted DTH digital TV and satellite broadband services for Europe and the Middle East.[39] The successful launch followed a 10-week delay due to the postponement of all launches by launch services provider ILS after a catastrophic failure of the rocket in a previous launch.[40]

In March 2014, Astra 5B was launched as SES' 56th satellite to the Astra 31.5°E position from Kourou in French Guiana to provide transponder capacity and extend geographical reach over Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States for DTH, direct-to-cable and contribution feeds to digital terrestrial television networks.[41]

In April 2014, Romain Bausch stepped down as President and CEO of SES, a position he had held since 1995 overseeing the growth of the company from a European Direct-to-home satellite system with four satellites into a global satellite industry leader operating a fleet of more than 50 satellites. Bausch continues to serve SES as a non-executive Director, and is elected to take the role of Chairman at the start of 2015. He was succeeded as CEO by Karim Michel Sabbagh.[42]

In July 2014 SES announced that nearly half of the SES satellite fleet is controlled from the new satellite operations center (SOC) opened at its sales and engineering offices in Princeton, New Jersey. 23 satellites are controlled from Princeton with the remainder operated from SES’s global headquarters in Luxembourg.[43]

Satellite fleet

Main articles: SES World Skies and Astra (satellite)

The following active satellites are owned and operated by SES

AMC
Satellite AMC-1 AMC-3 AMC-4 AMC-6 AMC-7 AMC-8 AMC-9 AMC-10 AMC-11 AMC-18 AMC-21
Position 103°W 67°W 67°W 72°W 137°W 139°W 83°W 135°W 131°W 105°W 125°W
ASTRA
Satellite Astra 1G Astra 1H Astra 1KR Astra 1L Astra 1M Astra 1N Astra 2A Astra 2B Astra 2C Astra 2D Astra 2E Astra 2F Astra 3B Astra 4A Astra 5B
Position 31.5°E 19.2°E 19.2°E 19.2°E 19.2°E 19.2°E 28.2°E 31.5°E 19.2°E 28.2°E 28.2°E 28.2°E 23.5°E 5°E 31.5°E
NSS
Satellite NSS-5 NSS-6 NSS-7 NSS-9 NSS-10 NSS-11 NSS-12 NSS-703 NSS-806
Position 50.5°E 95°E 20°W 177°W 37.5°W 108.2°E 57°E 47°W 40.5°W
SES
Satellite SES-1 SES-2 SES-3 SES-4 SES-5 SES-6 SES-7 SES-8
Position 101°W 87°W 103°W 22°W 5°E 40.5°W 108.2°E 95°E

Upcoming launches

Satellite Name Launch Date Orbital Position Frequency Bands Coverage Area
Astra 2G Q4 2014 28.2°E Ku UK, Europe, West Africa
SES-9 Q2 2015 108.2°E Ku South Asia, Asia-Pacific
SES-10 2016 67°W Ku Latin America
SES-12 Q4 2017 95°E Ku and Ka South Asia, Asia-Pacific

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Annual Report 2012". SES. Retrieved 14 August 2013.
  2. ^ Peter B. de Selding (1 August 2011). "SES Signs up Gilat as Ka-band Partner". Space News. Retrieved 22 September 2011.
  3. ^ Fleet and Coverage www.ses.com website. Accessed August 26, 2014
  4. ^ a b c SES Global Connections via Satellite. (September, 2011). Company brochure
  5. ^ ASTRA 5B Mission Press Kit SES March 2014. Accessed June 29, 2014
  6. ^ SES satellite Monitor 2013 March 2014. Accessed March 28, 2014
  7. ^ a b c d e High Above – The untold story of Astra, Europe’s leading satellite company Broadgate Publications April 2010
  8. ^ "SES in the 07th heaven". Paperjam.lu. 7 September 2007. Retrieved 10 September 2009.
  9. ^ "Romain Bausch consacré "Satellite Executive of the Year"" (in French). Paperjam.lu. 5 February 2002. Retrieved 10 September 2009.
  10. ^ Companies and participations SES website. Accessed August 14 2013
  11. ^ a b "SES OPERATES UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE" (Press release). SES. 2 May 2011.
  12. ^ http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2010/04/21/astra-offially-announces-3d-channel/
  13. ^ http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/SES_WORLD_SKIES_To_Host_Extensive_3D_TV_Tests_999.html
  14. ^ "SES to pioneer first Ultra HD transmission in new standard at SES Industry Days" (Press release). SES. 19 April 2013. Retrieved 29 August 2014.
  15. ^ Ultra HD SES website section. Accessed August 29, 2014
  16. ^ Developing The Path For Ultra HD SES online factsheet. Accessed August 29, 2014
  17. ^ ASTRA2Connect provides a broadband connection wherever you live ASTRA2Connect website. Retrieved 24 September 2011
  18. ^ http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/Publications/HostedPayload_Factsheet.pdf
  19. ^ http://www.gpsworld.com/gnss-system/augmentation-assistance/news/ses-astra-awarded-second-navigation-payload-egnos-9392
  20. ^ "SES, SSC To Acquire Swedish NSAB". Cable & Satellite Europe. December 2001. Retrieved 31 July 2000. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  21. ^ "More Than Space Allows". Cable & Satellite Europe. December 2001. Retrieved 23 September 2011.
  22. ^ "SES GLOBAL Increases Stake In NSAB To 75%". Business Wire. 15 December 2003. Retrieved 25 September 2011.
  23. ^ "SES ASTRA increases shareholding in ND SatCom to 100%" (Press release). ND Satcom. 24 May 2006.
  24. ^ "SES Completes New Skies Acquisition" (PDF). Space Business Review. March 2006. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  25. ^ "AsiaSat Announces New Major Shareholder GE" (PDF) (Press release). AsiaSat. 2 April 2007.
  26. ^ "SES Increases Ownership In SES SIRIUS To 90 Percent" (Press release). SES. 31 January 2008.
  27. ^ "SES re-brands international divisions". Rapidtvnews.com. 7 September 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2009.
  28. ^ "SES ASTRA AND YAHSAT START MIDDLE EAST SATELLITE COMPANY" (Press release). SES Astra. 20 April 2009.
  29. ^ "SES offers cash to back internet satellite project". Financial Times. 31 January 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2009.
  30. ^ "SES ASTRA TAKES FULL OWNERSHIP OF SES SIRIUS" (Press release). SES. 5 March 2010.
  31. ^ http://www.euroinvestor.co.uk/news/story.aspx?id=11042465&bw=20100505005708
  32. ^ "New logo and brand identity presented at IBC in Amsterdam" (Press release). SES. 9 September 2011.
  33. ^ "ASTRA 1N ROARS INTO SPACE ON BOARD ARIANE 5" (Press release). SES. 7 August 2011.
  34. ^ QuetzSat-1 successfully launched – ILS, QuetzSat-1 successfully launched at Baikonur cosmodrome, ILS – 29 September 2011.
  35. ^ "50th SES SPACECRAFT IN ORBIT AFTER SUCCESSFUL ILS PROTON LAUNCH" (Press release). SES. 15 February 2012.
  36. ^ "SES-5 TO PROVIDE FRESH SATELLITE CAPACITY IN MULTIPLE FREQUENCY BANDS TO EUROPE, AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST" (Press release). SES. 10 July 2012.
  37. ^ "SES SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES ASTRA 2F SATELLITE" (Press release). SES. 1 October 2012. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
  38. ^ "SES-6 SATELLITE LAUNCHED SUCCESSFULLY WITH LARGE BRAZILIAN ANCHOR CUSTOMER" (Press release). SES. 4 June 2013. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
  39. ^ "ASTRA 2E successfully launched" (Press release). SES. 30 September 2013. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  40. ^ Russia Halts Proton Rocket Launches After Explosive Crash Space.com. July 2, 2013. Accessed September 30, 2013
  41. ^ "SES: ASTRA 5B SATELLITE LAUNCH SUCCESS ON ARIANE 5" (Press release). SES ASTRA. 23 March 2014. Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  42. ^ "SES ANNOUNCES BOARD APPOINTMENTS" (Press release). SES. 3 April 2014. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  43. ^ "SES UNVEILS NEW SATELLITE OPERATIONS CENTER" (Press release). SES. 31 July 2014. Retrieved 1 August 2014.
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