SES secures € 523 million export credit funding facility guaranteed by Coface
LUXEMBOURG–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Global satellite operator SES S.A. (Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG) announces that it has secured a EUR 522,889,400 export credit funding facility guaranteed by Coface, France’s export credit agency.
The purpose of the facility is to finance four new satellites (designated ASTRA 2E, ASTRA 2F, ASTRA 2G and ASTRA 5B) for which the procurement contract with Astrium was signed November 30th, 2009. The facility has been arranged by BNP Paribas and Société Générale as Mandated Lead Arrangers and ING Belgium SA as Arranger. The whole facility is guaranteed by Coface and will mature in 2022.
SES is currently rated BBB by Standard & Poor’s and Fitch and Baa2 by Moody’s and is committed to maintaining its investment grade rating.
States Mark Rigolle, Chief Financial Officer of SES: “This facility further develops SES’ diversified funding base, and significantly extends our maturity profile based on the design lifetimes of these four satellites.”
About SES
SES (Paris:SESG) (LuxX:SESG) wholly owns the market-leading satellite operators SES ASTRA and SES WORLD SKIES, 90% of SES SIRIUS in Europe, and participations in Ciel in Canada and QuetzSat in Mexico. SES provides outstanding satellite communications solutions via a global fleet of 40 satellites in 26 orbital locations. For further information: www.ses.com.