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Eutelsat: CapEx will stay at €400m
Chris Forrester ©RapidTVNews | 18-03-2010
Paris-based Eutelsat is committed to spending about €450m each year until 2012. That translates into almost two satellites per annum. But the spending won’t stop in 2012.
CEO Michel de Rosen, speaking in Washington at the Satellite 2010 show, said that while the satellite operator had yet to give formal guidance he saw capital expenditure continuing to average about €400m per annum for the mid-term future.
He added that while some of this cash would go on fleet replacement his firm intention was to see the Eutelsat fleet add fresh capacity, and develop new markets. However, he repeated that he saw this effort concentrated more in an Easterly direction, than Westerly. He said that North America was now generating only modest growth while there were many other parts of the planet represented considerable growth opportunities.
However, Mr de Rosen said that Eutelsat was very keen to build on its recent successes with the US Department of Defence, which was buying significant quantities of capacity. The DoD is responsible for some 80% of Eutelsat’s ‘multi-usage’ take-up, and that while contract lengths were shorter there was still good business in military and governmental sales.
© Rapid TV News 2010
