The vice president of the EIB had never been to Betzdorf before. And Kris Peeters did not come empty-handed, but instead with the opening of a €300m credit line.

While this is the largest loan ever granted by the European institution to a Luxembourg company--there are not many that need it--this agreement with the EIB is the third in the history of the world’s leading satellite operator, after borrowing €59.5m in 1991-1992 (which was actually still expressed in Luxembourg francs) and €200m in 2009.

Three satellites ordered from Thales

The loan involves the acquisition and launch of three satellites, all ordered from Thales Alenia Space, Astra 1P, Astra 1Q and SES26, two of which are new-generation satellites, i.e., flexible and fully able to be remote-controlled, to replace and upgrade the satellites with which SES currently covers Western Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

The satellites, which have already been ordered and are already under construction, are to be launched by an as-yet-unknown launcher in 2024.

"I have three good reasons to be happy and satisfied," explained the EIB VP. "Firstly, this is the biggest loan ever granted to a Luxembourg company. It is very good news for us to have, for the first time, an agreement with SES for a very large loan. Secondly, we are very happy because we have known the company for years, and this renews our partnership, not only because of the amount, but also because of the credit use. We give a lot of credit to many companies and many countries, but this one is very special because it is for investments in space. For us, space is a very important sector.”

European ambitions

"I very much appreciated what you said about strengthening Europe and European companies in a context of global competition," said SES CEO . "What we see is that more and more countries in the world are recognising the strategic importance of space. We are at the forefront of technology with our two fully digital satellites. Innovation is everywhere."

There have been many discussions over the past year, led by the European commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, with the European Commission and the European Space Agency, to provide the means for leading and new players to develop in a sector that requires a lot of investment.

"We are delighted to have secured this EIB loan, which allows us to diversify our funding sources on attractive terms," said SES CFO Sandeep Jalan. By the third quarter of 2022, SES had risen above the 3.3x debt to Ebitda metric, an indicator of the company's debt trajectory, and it is forecast that 2023 will be the most complicated year until 2030, although the billions of dollars for the release of spectrum for US 5G (on December 5) should give the operator a boost.

This article was originally published in French on and has been translated and edited for Delano.