Hello and welcome to the SES Q1 2025 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 one 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, Christian Kern, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Thank you, Laura. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. My name is Christian Kern, Head of Investor Relations, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to SES Q1 2025 results call on behalf of our management team. Before proceeding with the management presentation, we would like to inform you that the financial information contained in this document has been prepared under International Financial Reporting Standards. As usual, this presentation may contain announcements that constitute forward-looking statements, which are no guarantees for future business performance and involve risks as well as uncertainties. Also, certain results may materially differ from those in these forward-looking statements due to several factors. We invite you to read the detailed disclaimer on page two of the presentation, which is also available on our company webpage.
Today, I'm here and joined by our CEO, Adel Al-Saleh, and our CFO, Sandeep Jalan, who will take you through this presentation, followed by a Q&A session. Adel, with no further ado, over to you, please.
Great. Thank you, Christian. Good morning, everybody. Starting with our Q1 highlights on page number three, we had a solid start to the year and are on track for our reaffirmed full-year 2025 financial outlook, underscoring that our evolved strategy is delivering positive operational and financial results. We continue to have commercial momentum across the business, which demonstrates the growing demand for our differentiated solutions. The transformation and value creation and value accretive intelsat acquisition is progressing well and is anticipated to close in the early part of the second half of 2025. Looking at the financial highlights on page number four, as we expected, the first quarter of the year produced a solid set of results with revenue stable year on year, reflecting strong operational execution led by the network growth of 8.4% year on year, including some periodic revenue.
Q1 2025 adjusted EBITDA was also in line with our expectation, broadly stable year on year with a 55% margin, including flow-through of periodic revenue impact and some shifts in cost as well as lower margin equipment sales to outer quarters. This was supported by solid growth in networks and nearly 6% reduction in controllable operational expenses as we continue to transform and drive operational excellence throughout the business. In Q1 2025, we secured EUR 360 million of renewals and new customer contracts, with the majority coming from our growth segments, supporting our growth backlog of EUR 4.5 billion. Our net leverage is at 1.2 x, including EUR 3.1 billion of cash and cash equivalents. On page number five, we continue to strengthen and build on existing and new partnerships in our chosen markets and seeing increased demand for our differentiated offering.
We're proud to be a trusted partner in the government sector, but we're starting to see increased demand from the recent changes in the geopolitical landscape. This is, for example, demonstrated by key contracts like the EUR 200 million NATO MGS contract, the US-European Command blanket purchase agreement, and the IRIS² contract award. On the MGS contract, which you've heard from before, we're proud to have had the Netherlands joining the MGS agreement. The addition of Netherlands reflects the growing strength of our partnership with NATO, with O3b mPOWER, low latency, guaranteed SLAs, flexibility, and security. We're proud to begin delivering connectivity to the MGS founding nations and new members under the NSPA agreements. These agreements enhance secure, resilient, and high-performance connectivity for NATO members and US-European Command while expanding our global MEO offering.
Our strategic wins underscore our commitment to delivering innovative solutions and driving growth in the government business. With IRIS², we're well poised for the future of connectivity. In April, we have successfully completed the kickoff phase of the EU's IRIS² program, reinforcing our leadership and providing sovereign, secure European connectivity from space. In Q1 2025, we're proud that another airline, Uzbekistan Airways, selected our Open Orbits offering through our participating partners. Uzbekistan Airways will integrate the SES Open Orbits network in its in-flight connectivity. In addition, Thai Airways plans to expand its use of SES Open Orbits on its future aircraft. Wins like this are driving our future growth in aviation, where our ability to deliver managed multi-orbit solutions is a source of strength, anchoring our right to win in this competitive segment.
Our continued success in maritime, driven by sustained demand from new builds from our customers like MSC, Princess, Virgin, and others, showcases our strong positioning in the ocean ship segment. This is thanks to our end-to-end multi-orbit service with managed MEO-based networks as the cornerstone of their passenger connectivity experience. In fixed data, we're setting up our differentiated capabilities for future growth with innovative partnerships such as the Starlink Global indirect device, which will allow SES's customer to benefit from a broader range of applications, including remote access, mission-critical first responder, and secure government communications, offshore and automotive connectivity. In media, we're proud to have signed up ATP Media, a major sports media organization. SES's centralized platform will allow ATP Media's broadcast partners to easily procure, encrypt, and customize their content for the local distribution.
This partnership will enable 1 billion global fans to be watching over 3,000 tennis matches in the coming year. This quarter, we have also signed Mileto in Brazil, a contract which over time has the potential to grow and mitigate some of the capacity revenue lost to a customer bankruptcy, as announced last year. These wins demonstrate the sustained relevance of our satellite offering for media applications. Moving on to the vertical performance, starting with our networks business on page number six, where we have demonstrated our ability to win with our multi-orbit solutions. Let's start with the government business, which is showing strong growth, up by more than 13% year on year, driven by expansion in both the U.S. and global government businesses.
Our mobility business is almost 9% year on year, with double-digit growth in aviation and complemented by growth in maritime, including periodic revenue related to a contract modification of EUR 19 million for Q1 2025 and a EUR 22 million recognized in Q1 2024, which we announced before. Mobility excluding this periodic effect showed a strong performance of 18% growth year on year. Due to continued capacity constraints of our O3b mPOWER fleet and the competitive nature of the segment, our fixed data business is down 2% year on year, performing to our expectations as the trend begins to improve. As we increase our available capacity on the mPower constellation, we expect fixed data to continue to improve throughout the year. Finally, network growth backlog stands at EUR 2.5 billion, having secured EUR 276 million of new business and renewals this quarter with a strong US and global government pipeline.
Our growth backlog and pipeline are supporting our forecast and future growth, demonstrating that our strategy and our multi-orbit solutions are critical components of market requirements. Moving on to page number seven and our high cash-generated media business. As expected, the media business continued to decline by -10.6% year on year in first quarter on the back of lower revenue in mature markets due to capacity optimization and the impact of SD channel switch-offs, as well as the impact of the Brazilian customer bankruptcy. We have secured EUR 84 million of renewals and new agreements, underscoring the significant cash flow generation of our video business and contributing to our gross backlog of EUR 2 billion, serving 362 million homes across the world. The revenue and operational performance reflect the robust fundamentals of this business and solid customer demand.
We continue expanding our services to a comprehensive approach in the media service market by combining our traditional capacity business with added ground services and managing more of the distribution chain to reduce complexity for our customers. Moving on to page number eight and the deployment of our O3b mPOWER constellation, which will support our revenue growth as we try to keep up with the demand. As you know, 2024 was a very important landmark year for our M-Power MEO constellation, where it entered commercial services. We're proud to say that O3b mPOWER deployment remains on track with satellites seven and eight having reached their final orbital position and have been fully tested. They will enter commercial operations beginning of May, which is in just a few days.
This start of service of satellites seven and eight is expanding the capacity and resilience of the constellation and bringing much-needed capacity where we see more demand than what we can serve today. Satellites nine to eleven will follow with a summer launch and will increase our capacity even further from the beginning of 2026. The final O3b mPOWER satellites, which is 12 and 13, will be launched in 2026. Overall, this represents a threefold capacity increase compared to today when the constellation is fully operational in 2027 and will accelerate revenue ramp-up of our MEO constellation. In 2027, we will manage a robust constellation of seven fully operational satellites, complemented by the initial six satellites.
The scalability of our MEO network allows us to regularly add satellites incrementally, ensuring capacity growth aligns with customer demand while maintaining a balanced supply-demand ratio in a CapEx-efficient manner. Each new satellite enhances the constellation, boosting overall capacity and network efficiency to support long-term profitable growth. IRIS² is strategically timed to commence services by 2030, coinciding with M-Power's steady-state operations. Together, they will meet growing demand well into the next decade. Additionally, IRIS² will expand coverage beyond M-Power's reach today, unlocking new opportunities for MEO-based services in previously inaccessible regions, including seamless pole-to-pole coverage. On page number nine, I would like to talk about our differentiator, our integrated holistic multi-orbit network. At SES, our integrated multi-orbit architecture is not just a technical jargon or technical achievement. It is a strategic advantage that delivers advanced performance, global reach, and future-ready flexibility for our customers.
We leverage full ownership economics in GEO and MEO, combined with strategic partnerships in LEO and our vast ground network and terminals portfolio to provide high availability, end-match resilience, network density, and seamless interoperability across orbits. With complete control over our assets on the ground in geostationary and medium Earth orbits, we ensure secure, scalable bandwidth, and optimized cost structures essential for mission-critical and high-throughput applications. Through key alliances and partnerships in LEO, we extend our reach and enhance agility in our services portfolio without the significant capital expenditure of owning a LEO infrastructure. By securing access to a GEO, MEO, and LEO orbital architecture in space, we are integrated with a pervasive and robust global ground network, combined with an intelligent digital layer of networking software that allows our customers superior ingress and egress, bandwidth, latency, coverage, density, security, and reach.
When this network is finally accessed via a diverse portfolio of end-user terminals, which are optimized for our government, maritime, aviation, and fixed data customers, we are delivering a unique and enhanced connectivity experience for them. Our multi-orbit network is designed for what matters most: performance without compromise, whether for governments, mobility, or fixed data. We're enhancing our service offerings, including smart routing, dynamic traffic steering, quality of experience management, and preparing for 5G NTN seamless connectivity. With IRIS², our area of coverage will expand to a global full pole-to-pole coverage, provide resilience with multiple satellites in view, and more importantly, drive user terminal small form factors for any easy install, meeting customer use cases' needs, ensuring customer remains connected wherever, whenever, and however they need. On page number ten, an update in our transformational agreement to acquire Intelsat.
On the regulatory front, we continue to make good progress with smaller regulatory clearances completed, including Brazil. Remaining clearances are progressing as well, and we continue working with major administration and regulatory bodies. That includes FCC, Department of Justice in the United States, European Commission, and CMA in the U.K., as well. We are close with these processes as quickly as possible. We also made an F-4 filing with the SEC last week, which is public as of yesterday, including pro forma financials for the combined company for financial year 2024, and an indicative IFRS valuation of the CVRs to be attributed to Intelsat shareholders in the context of potential additional C-band clearing.
This has been required to meet SEC registration requirements and does not in any way suggest the actual outcome of a process or any proceeds for the clearing of the upper C-band as ordered by the FCC. Sandeep will explain a lot more on this topic in a few minutes. Closing on the acquisition remains on track to complete during second half 2025, with detailed planning for synergies ready to be executed and all financial objectives for the combined company reaffirmed. Given how well we're progressing, we could be looking to close the acquisition in the earlier part of second half 2025 rather than latter. However, SES submitted its comments to the FCC's draft notice of inquiry proposal, what's called NOI, for further C-band clearances yesterday, on 29th of April. Reply comments are due in 30 days.
FCC's objective continues to be to move fast in clearing additional C-band spectrum, and SES is working closely with the FCC to meet its objectives of finding more intensive uses for the spectrum while protecting incumbent users both in band and in adjacent bands. SES welcomes the opportunity to work with the stakeholders to ensure a successful outcome that protects incumbent services while advancing the rollout of newer technologies and will continue cooperating with the FCC to support their objective while ensuring best outcome for our clients in North America and for us as well. Moving to page 11, I would like to reiterate the combined company growth outlook and the value equation of this transaction. The combined company will be strategically positioned to offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions in high-value, high-growth markets.
This integration will establish a strong competitor with a financial capability to invest in future opportunities, maintaining our investment-grade metrics and delivering attractive returns to our shareholders, creating a stronger, more competitive multi-orbit operator with an improved financial position and cash generation profile. Intelsat transaction is highly synergistic. We continue to make great progress on the integration plan, which has been validated by both teams from both companies to deliver conviction case synergies of EUR 2.4 billion NPV and the execution timetable of 70% of these synergies by the end of the third year, with an opportunity to accelerate our timeline from day one closing. With over EUR 8 billion of combined gross backlog, 60% of the combined revenue to be in the growing network segment, driving top-line expansion and strengthening our position as a top-tier player.
The combined company is on track to grow adjusted free cash flow to over EUR 1 billion before IRIS² by 2027-2028 and delivering significant value for our shareholders. With that, I'll hand over to Sandeep to take you through the financial highlights.
Thanks, Adel. Good morning, everyone. We are very pleased with our quarter one financial performance, which once again demonstrates our disciplined execution with stable revenues and broadly stable adjusted EBITDA, which is in line with our outlook for 2025. Both revenues and EBITDA showed underlying growth when excluding the periodic revenues, both in quarter one of this year as well as in quarter one of last year. Starting with the income statement on page 13, adjusted EBITDA of EUR 280 million was down year-on-year by about 0.9%, which is in line with our expectation to stabilize results.
The adjusted EBITDA margin was robust at 55%, and this is mainly due to continued growth in our network business, including a periodic impact from a contract modification, which amounted to EUR 19 million for quarter one 2025, compared to EUR 22 million for quarter one of last year. Also, there were some impacts from shifts in cost, as well as shift in sales of lower margin equipment to the next quarters of 2025. We expect some costs for the next three quarters to execute equipment and service-heavy revenues, with M-Power satellites seven and eight also coming into service and ramping. We reiterate our adjusted EBITDA guidance of broadly stable for the full year 2025, with an implied margin being in the range of 50-51%. Total OPEX, including the cost of sales, was a stable year-on-year.
Cost of sales increased in line with the network revenue increase, while it was fully offset by continued drive on cost-efficiency actions, which resulted in extended savings in controllable OpEx by about 6% reduction year-over-year. Adjusted net profit was EUR 42 million. Reduction versus the prior year, it reflects the higher depreciation and amortization expense, as well as higher net interest costs, partly offset by lower net income tax expense. The increase in depreciation and amortization arises primarily from M-Power depreciation from getting in service and a change in accounting policy to treat our indefinite life intangibles as definite life amortizable intangibles, as already flagged in August last year. Higher interest costs primarily arose from the reduced interest rates for interest income on surplus cash and cash equivalents.
Finally, the difference between adjusted and reported net profit is explained by significant special items, which includes EUR 19 million of other non-recurring expenses, which relate to restructuring costs, as well as the M&A costs and other significant special items pertaining to the net financing costs, once again pertaining to the M&A transaction. These were partly offset by EUR 1 million other income and EUR 5 million of related net income tax benefits. Turning to our financial position and balance sheet metrics on page 14, we continue to hold a strong financial position. Adjusted free cash flow for quarter one was negative EUR 51 million, primarily due to a CapEx phasing being front-loaded this year due to M-Power satellites and our other satellite programs. Our CapEx cash outflows are not linear and are dependent on project milestones.
We are reiterating our full-year CapEx guidance, which is between EUR 425 million-EUR 475 million for the full year 2025. In terms of the adjusted free cash flow, we have generated EUR 684 million in the last two years. The final full-year 2024 interim dividend of EUR 0.25 per share was paid to shareholders on 17th of April. This takes our total shareholder returns since 2021 now to EUR 1.3 billion, which is over 100% of adjusted free cash flow for the last four years, and it continues to remain a sector-leading shareholder returns. Our investment-grade balance sheet continues to be industry-leading, with net leverage of 1.2 x as of 31st March 2025, including EUR 3.1 billion of cash and cash equivalents, which exclude the EUR 295 million cash advance received from the European Commission as the IRIS² consortium lead towards this program, which we hold as a restricted cash.
We have made also excellent progress on the C-band reimbursement. We have received further $70 million during quarter one of this year, and we expect remaining $24 million to be received in the next quarter, which is quarter two. We have also made some progress on the insurance claim for O3b mPOWER satellites one to four, with some initial settlements already closed, with cumulative $58 million having been settled to date. We expect this cash to be collected during quarter two. The negotiations are accelerating also with other insurers, and as it develops, we'll provide more updates during the coming quarters. The highly accredited Intelsat acquisition is on track to close, as said earlier, in the early part of the second half of this year, and the financing for this transaction as well is fully secured.
Hence, SES now intends to optimize the debt structure of the combined entity as well. As such, SES intends to redeem in aggregate approximately $2 billion of the 6.5% First Lien Senior Secured Notes, which are due 2030, which were issued by Intelsat Jackson Holdings on or before closing of the transaction through a closing redemption of the part of the SSNs in accordance with the terms thereof, and prior to closing, conducting some open market purchases of these outstanding senior secured notes. The combined company is expected to generate growing levels of adjusted free cash flow, including from ramp-up of significant synergies, and have a strong growth outlook with sufficient liquidity to cover upcoming maturities post the transaction closing. As Adel already mentioned, we have submitted the F-4 filing to the SEC in relation to the registration of the contingent value rights instruments.
This is now public and includes pro forma condensed financial information of the combined company for full year 2024, including a translation of US GAAP reported results from Intelsat to IFRS accounting standards, and alignment of Intelsat accounting policies to SES accounting policies, and also details of intercompany elimination, as well as IFRS valuation of the CVRs. The IFRS value of the CVRs in the F-4 filing only represents the net present value of a contingent liability based on 42.5% of the net clearing proceeds, which will become payable to Intelsat shareholders towards the first megahertz clear in the event of a monetization event. This is further discounted by the probabilities of the underlying uncertainties.
The IFRS valuation of the liability of the CVR is not necessarily indicative of the amount of the future proceeds that the CVR holders or SES may or may not actually receive for clearing the applicable spectrum if the FCC decides to repurpose some portion of the C-band spectrum. Sandeep, you said 100 megahertz, right? That's the first 100 megahertz. It's only the first 100 megahertz where the CVR holders are entitled. It's also important to mention that SES shareholders will continue to benefit from the remaining 57.5% of the first 100 megahertz, as well as 100% of any further clearing of the second 100 megahertz. We have compiled a list of frequently asked questions in relation to this F-4 filing, which you can find on public domains, and we have also published on our company website to provide more clarity to our investors and to analysts.
On 3rd of April, SES had held its AGM, and all company recommended resolutions were approved, including our intention to increase the annual base dividend and prioritize the majority of any exceptional cash flows of the combined company towards shareholder returns as SES meets its net leverage targets of below three times within 12 to 18 months after closing the Intelsat transaction. Lastly, moving to the financial outlook on page 15, our quarter one performance shows a solid start to the year, and we are on track to meet our full-year financial outlook. Hence, we reaffirm our guidance for full year, expecting group revenue to stable year-on-year on the back of strong network growth in 2025 compared to 2024. This will offset media declines, which we expect to be above our medium-term outlook of net single-digit average decline due to two elements.
First, about a 5% point from the Brazilian customer bankruptcy already flagged last year. Second, the impact of SD TV channels having now been switched off in Europe and the U.K., reflecting the full impact in this year's results as the customer now transitioned to SD channels. We expect the media trajectory to improve from 2026 onwards. 2025 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be broadly stable year-on-year on the back of a better-than-expected outturn in 2024, as we surpassed our 2024 outlook by almost EUR 30 million. When excluding the impact of Brazilian customer bankruptcy in 2025, we would have expected year-on-year growth on both revenue as well as EBITDA. We expect to deliver in 2025 a second full year of stable revenues and adjusted EBITDA, despite this affecting Brazil, positioning us for sustained growth beyond 2025.
CAPEX in quarter one was EUR 216 million, showing that this year our CAPEX is front-loaded, as I previously mentioned, and we are also reiterating our 2025 CAPEX outlook, which is in the range of EUR 425-EUR 475 million. We expect an average of EUR 325 million for the subsequent years, 2026 to 2029, when excluding the IRIS² CAPEX. IRIS² CAPEX phasing, as we have announced earlier, is expected to be back-loaded, with most of the CAPEX to ramp from year 2027 onwards, and it will translate into an average annual CAPEX spend of about EUR 400 million over 2027 to 2030. We will announce exact phasing of the IRIS² program once the program cost estimates and the time schedule gets finalized toward the end of this year, with the first kickoff phase now behind us. Now I hand back to Adel for his closing remarks.
Thank you, Sandeep.
On page 17, I'd like to reaffirm the positive impact of our evolved and differentiated strategy. Our solid financial performance in Q1 2025 reflects the impact of our transformational strategy focused on building a more efficient, agile operating model that accelerates execution and drives profitability, efficiency, and cash flow generation, as can be seen from the reduction of OpEx, excluding cost of goods sold. OpEx reduced, as we already said in Q1, by about 6%. If you remember, last year, it was reduced 9% for the full year. We continue to see rising demand for advanced multi-orbit connectivity solutions that reduce complexity for our customers. Customer requirements are clearly bifurcating. While standard commoditized solutions face intense competition, SES is positioned to lead in delivering high-value, managed multi-orbit services where performance, reliability, and support matters the most.
This is reflected in our commercial momentum with EUR 360 million in new contract spends across target segments this quarter, adding to our EUR 4.5 billion growth backlog. Furthermore, our combined expansion of M-Power with satellites 7 and 8 starting to service as from May, then satellites 9-11, which will be launched in the summer, and our investment in innovative technologies, services, and projects such as IRIS² ensure our versatile solutions remain at the forefront of evolving customer needs. SES is well-positioned for long-term sustainable growth with a differentiated, future-ready network and a clear path to value creation in a more competitive and innovation-driven environment. Finally, on page number 18, our ambition remains to position ourselves as an industry leader in a valuable, fast-growing satcom industry. We continue to focus on customer centricity, delivering the highest value for governments and our clients in our chosen markets.
With laser focus on strong execution, operational excellence, and SES's key strategic priorities, we'll continue to further grow in government and mobility, which we expect will drive network acceleration, showing sustainable, profitable growth for future investments and total shareholder return. We'll continue investing in developing our differentiated solutions, enhancing our capabilities, efficiency, and productivity with our M-Power satellites, projects like the Link Global device, Open Orbits, and key projects such as sovereign secure connectivity for US government and European governments through NATO MGS and IRIS². As mentioned, we'll continue to cooperate with the FCC on the C-band and support their objective while ensuring the best outcome for our clients in North America and for us as well.
With enhanced scale, financial strength, and a broader solution set, we're well-positioned to be one of the top players in this expanding industry with an important differentiating ability to generate over EUR 1 billion in free cash flows by 2027/2028. Our commitment to strategic, iterative investment will continue to reinforce our industry-leading balance sheet and strengthen our capabilities, and we will continue to be a great place to work for our employees who are our most valuable assets. With that, Christian, I give it back to you for Q&A.
Thank you, Adel, and thank you, Sandeep. Laura, we are ready for the Q&A if you would be kind to register questions there.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to allow everyone to signal for questions.
Thank you. We'll now take our first question from Halima Elias of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I have two questions, please. Firstly, can you help us frame the potential opportunity available to SES as a result of the sharp rise in European defense budgets that we've seen over the quarter? Have you been involved in any discussions with policymakers so far, and can you offer any color on the scale and the potential timeline over which this could materialize? Secondly, your first quarter results were once again supported by strong cost control. How much scope do you have to continue capturing these cost efficiencies? Should we expect to see any margin dilution through the year as equipment revenues take a greater share within the overall mix after the service launch of M-Power satellites 7 and 8?
Thank you very much.
Okay, thank you, Halima. Let me tackle the questions, and Sandeep, please help me with the question on the back end on the cost control and the margin. We clearly see increased demand in Europe across all the nations in the European Union around their defense spend. You read it in the news. You've seen all the nations bolstering their future investments. All of these budgets are coming together as we speak, and we expect to see increased demand in midterm and long term. It takes a little bit of time for them to finalize their budgets, decide exactly what they want to do. I mean, one of the things I would point you to yesterday, there were two very interesting articles that were published.
One of them was by the Ministry of Defense in Germany, which actually highlighted their space architecture, which again reaffirmed our view of the criticality of multi-orbit. They specifically talked about having a GEO, MEO, and a LEO architecture supported not only by government-owned infrastructure, but also in partnership with commercial players. We've seen that with Space Force in the U.S. over the last several years. There are other nations that are doing exactly that. We expect demand to grow as they start putting these budgets to work. Tactically, we also see the demand growing. You've seen our business in government growing 13% in double-digit growth, but we're on both sides of the Atlantic. It demonstrates that the demand there is quite robust and sustainable over a foreseeable future.
Let's see when the budgets finally get into effect and when they deploy them into specific programs. That is why I say midterm to long term, we'll see a good boost from that. Look, as your second question on cost control, I mean, this is a real critical element of our strategy, which is the actual transformation piece. We believe there is quite some room for us to execute our cost initiatives, making us leaner, making us more efficient, faster, etc. Also, the combination with SES and Intelsat gives us a significant opportunity, clearly through the synergies, but also to continue to take cost actions in the future. This is sustainable, right? There will be peaks and valleys, right, as we execute. Of course, as we continue to progress, the year-on-year dynamics become different, right, because we put a lot of this stuff in our base.
For us, it's critical to balance both investment and cost controls, right? As you know, we're investing in IRIS², which requires people and requires upfront R&D work. At the same time, we're ensuring that the rest of the business is highly efficient so we can afford those investments, right, going forward. That is the philosophy. It's a philosophy we have in this company. It's a clear pillar of our strategy, and therefore we expect it to continue to add value. On the margins and the yearly skew.
Yeah. Halima is just giving a little bit more flavor in addition to what Adel mentioned on the margins and the cost. On the cost, we are putting a lot of focus to take out the discretionary cost, right?
There we had a reduction of almost 8% a year, right, on our discretionary cost when we exclude the cost of sales, which, by the way, will continue to rise, right, as we transition more from media revenue to the network revenues. On discretionary costs in quarter one, we see about a 6% reduction on top of the 8% reduction that we saw last year. We will see continued reduction this year as well, right, in our costs and programs. This should further accelerate once the Intelsat combination takes place during the second half of the year. That should further accelerate our pace of cost reduction. Now, in front of that, clearly there is a shift in our revenue mix.
Our revenue mix is shifting also from media decline, as we have said, in about double-digit % this year, offset by growth in M-Power revenues, which is also bringing some of the satellite ramp-up, including M-Power satellites. That provides us a nice profile to be able to fully offset the impact of media revenue and margin decline with the growth in M-Power revenues and our network business, as well as the discretionary cost reduction. This should all accelerate with the Intelsat integration. On the overall, as you can see, we had a robust margin last year of about 51%. This year, again, we are reaffirming, despite all these effects, once again, a margin which is very similar to last year. We are quite pleased that all these efforts are starting to reflect in our bottom line and in cash flows. Thank you. All right.
Next questi on, please.
Yes, thank you. We'll now take our next question from Alexander Pihl of Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I'd have three, if I may. The first one is on the potential upper C-band disposal. Do you have any updated views that you could share on the amount of spectrum that could be offered? Could you relocate entirely out of this band? Is that practically possible if you have any visibility on this? Do you have a view on what should be the guard band vis-à-vis aviation radar altimeter equipment that is in the adjacent band at 4.2 to 4.4 gigahertz? That would be the first one. The second one on media, you mentioned last year efforts to mitigate the impact of the Brazilian bankruptcy. Do you have more color on this?
How should we think on the trajectory of media throughout the current year? Lastly, when will you have capacity on MEO to serve your fixed data customers better so that this vertical can return to growth? Will we then see an impact on your margins because this is obviously a less profitable segment? Thank you very much.
Very good. Alexander, thank you for the three questions. Let me start, and then Sandeep will complement me. Look, on the C-band, you have to follow the FCC strategy, right? I mean, they have declared that they would like to clear as much as they can. Now they need to go through the process of consultation and understanding the dynamics and so on. There is a lot, as you know, we have a lot of experience in this, right?
We've cleared 300 megahertz of C-band over the last five years, right, when we did the work with FCC and had to relocate our customers and repack them. The technologies are evolving, right? The compression technologies, the usage and efficiency of satellite is evolving. Customers are also looking at a combination of different mediums to deliver content and so on. There is clearly an opportunity to clear C-band in North America. How much is still to be determined not only by the technical possibility, but also by FCC's strategy and their decision. That's going to drive it. Technically, we can see if we work very closely with FCC, we can see a path of clearing the 100 megahertz, which could be the first phase quite efficiently, right? I would direct you to read our response to the notice of inquiry, which lays out our thinking.
Clearing the rest is possible, but it requires more work. It requires more technical work, and it will require also us working with our clients because our key objective is to protect our clients, is to protect our services as well, because that continues to be an important vehicle for them to distribute content to tens of millions of households in the United States. We need to find a solution, and we believe there are solutions to be able to do it. It just requires a little bit more work. Now, regarding guard bands, as you know, there is already a 20 megahertz guard band today that was set up for the radio altimeters. We believe that that guard band will need to be there to be the protection from the 4.2 up to the 4.4 where the radio altimeters reside, right?
Which means that whatever we do, we need to create that guard band. By the way, the FAA needs to be very active in involving their involvement in how to actually clear it and how to upgrade the planes and how to make sure that the radio altimeters have the latest technology. There is a lot of work, which is why the FCC, of course, is going through their process. As I said earlier in my comments, we are working very closely with them. We understand their objectives, and we want to create a win-win-win, right? Win for the FCC, win for our clients, and win for us as well, right? That is possible because that is what the FCC did actually in the first clearing. Look, regarding your second question on media mitigation, I mean, we've done that.
I mean, a year ago, we told you, "Look, this was very painful that we have losing a customer due to a bankruptcy procedure." But we committed to all of you, to the market, to our shareholders, that we will mitigate that, not necessarily in the media line, but in the total company, right? So everybody forecasted when we announced the initial bankruptcy that 2025 will not be a stable year. It will be a declining year.
We have emphasized that we will do the work both on the cost side, as we can demonstrate to you in 2024 and our first quarter and our focus for the balance of the year, as well as the top line, accelerating growth in other segments, and as well as protecting and renewing some of the contracts in media to get a stable business despite this quite significant impact that we have to manage. In our opinion, we have done that both on top line and the bottom line. Regarding your last question around capacity, look, we're fortunate, and we've got to keep knocking on wood and keeping our fingers crossed. We've got a very good cadence in front of us on launching the future satellites. With each satellite increase launch, we're able to reconfigure the constellation to increase capacity.
From May, we will be increasing capacity by almost 30% to the constellation this year. We will start seeing this year an increase in capacity for not only our fixed data, but for all of the segments. They all have to compete for it, right? Because at the end of the day, we go for the best possible outcome for us as a company, for our shareholders, not just in the short term, but actually in the midterm and long term. It is not a given that every capacity that we generate goes to fixed data, right? It has to be the right deals and the right kind of construct for us. With the next wave of satellites, 9, 10, and 11 that are launching in the summer, by the beginning of 2026, we have another big step up in capacity, right?
It will give us additional confidence to further reconfigure and put more power through the satellites, through the constellation, to create more capacity. Beginning of 2026, we will have a significant step up in the capacity. Finally, as we launch the last two satellites in 2026, in the first half of 2026, by beginning of 2027, in the first half of 2027, we'll have another further step of the capacity. It will allow us, assuming we're successful in all the launches and all the satellites are nominal, we will be able to think about even more aggressive configurations of our constellation to give more power and more capacity to our segments.
There are steps that are in front of us that we're going to be seeing gradual step up in 2025, in 2026, and in 2027 that will give more capacity, usable capacity to both fixed data, but also to our government customers, our maritime customers, as well as our air customers who are now beginning to test our MEO constellations in the planes. They really like that multi-orbit capability on the planes. Hopefully, I've answered the question.
Yes, I could add from a quantitative perspective, Alexander, as Adel said, right? 2025 is a bumpy year so far as media revenues are concerned. It just comes from that Brazilian bankruptcy situation. We are very happy that we are able to fully offset that, right, by driving higher growth in network business. You see that we are having 8.4% growth in quarter one.
As well as for the full year, we are expecting a high single-digit % growth, right, that will fully offset that in part. As well as we are taking actions on the reduction in the discretionary cost, which should continue to help and at least stabilize the margin. A very important dynamic in our revenue mix is that the declining part of the business, which is media, right, used to be about 60% four years back. In the year 2021, media was 60% of our business, and network was 40%. This has flipped. When you take a look at quarter one, media is now 40%, and the growing part of our business, which is network, that is 60%.
As we move forward from this point on, every % of growth that we are able to drive in our network business and coming from these new M-Power satellites and the further capacity that we are getting unlocked, as Adel just explained, this should just present a good dynamic to set us for sustainable growth in the subsequent years, right? In 2025, again, it is a bumpy year for media, but we are able to fully offset the impact in both revenue and return. That is our end there for this year, and we are fully on track on that.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Alexander.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now take our next question from Nick Dempsey of Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, guys.
First of all, when setting the amount for the CVR, the NATA F4 filing, I understand this is an NPV figure. You're factoring some risks into that. We can't really see that. What was the kind of starting point for that calculation? Because it looks like it's probably lower than just using what you achieved last time on a run rate basis. Second question. Last year, you had the periodic boost in mobility in Q1. That seemed to have a negative effect on organic revenue growth in the following couple of quarters, and you'd sucked a benefit from one customer into periodic, and that was then balanced out by negatives from other customers, I think is how it worked. Should we expect some kind of similar pattern to that, or is this different this year?
Then the third question, just on the SD channel switch-offs, can you give us a bit more color on the timing of that? Particularly, is this just a negative one-off factor in 2025, or could it spill into 2026, and therefore we should expect a higher decline than you expect going forwar d in 2026 for video?
You want to take the first two, right?
Then I'll go. Nick, just explaining a little bit on the CVR, right? It is an important topic. There are more details provided in our FAQ as well as for that you can refer for any details regarding the valuation. Let me tee it up, the key elements. First of all, why do we value the CVRs? It is due to the IFRS requirements as a part of the acquisition accounting.
We are supposed to factor that in the pro forma results, which we have, right? We have recorded a contingent liability, which is payable to the CVR holders only when that successful event happens and cash is realized. In that event, 42.5% of that net proceeds is payable to these holders, right? It is payable only once the cash is realized. That is very, very important. The remaining 57.5% of the first 100 megahertz and the 100% of the next 100 megahertz is fully for the benefit of SES shareholders, but it does not appear in that pro forma. It is not required by the IFRS valuation rules. Now, coming to the valuation, right? The valuation that we have put together, it follows IFRS parameters, right?
It certainly puts a reference to the past valuation, but also it factors in certain uncertainties associated with the process, which is still evolving, right? We are in an annualized stage. As these uncertainties get clarified in the next stages, these amounts will continue to evolve. The second element in the valuation is clearly the time value of money, right? We have taken a net present value that means discounted over X years of successful clearing for the first 100 megahertz. Today, this value that we have put together, it takes into account several uncertainties, several probabilities, time value of money. For all practical purposes, the most reliable reference that exists today is the most recent precedent for the 200 megahertz clearing, which resulted in about $8.8 billion gross accelerated relocation incentives for SES and Intelsat combined.
As this process continues to evolve with FCC, there will be more clarity emerging, and these amounts may be more volatile, right? Depending upon those uncertainties, how they evolve, and the time value of the money and the timeline of the clearing. We will provide further clarity as it emerges, right? Let me just add to that. Nick, look, you asked the question of what do you think of the starting point for all of this, right? There is a starting point. I mean, I'd rather not talk about it, but there are so many steps following the IFRS rules that kind of adjust the values, which is why we're being very clear that this should not be taken as the representative of where it's going to be. There are a lot of variables in between. The biggest variable, by the way, is FCC.
What does FCC want to do, right? Which is not for us to predict, right, or speculate on it and so on. There is very important precedent in the market. It's actually the only valuable and the only real data point. That is what happened last time and what was paid last time. To me, that is the most important data point that the market has. Let's leave it at that rather than—and by the way, Christian can give you a lot more color one-on-one and walk you through kind of how did this work, how the mechanics work, if you will.
Second, on periodic revenue, Sandeep on whether or not it will have impact on the rest of the year.
Yeah. On periodic revenue, it's very important to reiterate, right? This was part of our guidance.
It is not something which is just a surprise to us. It is very much part of our customer existing contracts that we were expecting to benefit from the revenues in this year. It does not change anything whatsoever in our expectation for the full year. It is just the timing that appears in quarter one from, again, coming from accounting specificities by virtue of which we recorded these revenues in quarter one 2025, similar to what we did last year. Our intent and our goal remains to stabilize our revenues and our EBITDA for the rest of the year, and we are fully on track. Yeah. I mean, the result—I mean, Nick, you can do the math, right? Our outlook remains the way we described, right?
That will continue to be what we deliver, which means if you look at our numbers today and you look at how it's going to evolve by quarter, we should not have adverse effects by quarter. We actually expect to be improving as we go forward. Absolutely. Your last question on SD channel switch-off, whether it's a one-off or something. Look, this is not news to us, right? Because actually, the decisions of SD channel switch-off happened several years ago during our contract renewals discussions with our customers. Many customers carried SD and HD channels in parallel for several years as the end customers began to upgrade their TV sets, right? To be able to actually accept and watch HD channels overall. This was coming. It was a milestone in front of us, and it's a big step down.
It just happens to all align, all these contracts in 2025. There will be some SD channels left in the future, but their impact of switch-offs, which will continue, will not be as impactful as it is in this year. We expect after 2025, we get back to our strategic forecast of media, which is being declining mid-single digit consistently over the future, right? Our contracts that we already have secured through 2030, even beyond some of them, demonstrate that. That is the answer to that particular question. If I may add, they are all embedded in our full year 2025 guidance, Nick. There is nothing unexpected around this. Does that answer your que stion?
That's great. Thank you, guys.
Thank you, Nick. Let's move on to the next question, Laura.
We will take our next question from Roshan Ranjan of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Please go ahead.
Great. Morning, everyone. I've got three questions, please. Going back to one of the previous ones around the increase of capacity, Adel, you said that's going to be a 30% increase in May from M-Power 7 and 8. Is it fair to assume the bulk of that incremental capacity has already been kind of contracted? You've talked up the appetite for government contracts. Essentially, the utilization rate on those two satellites is near 100%. Is that fair to assume? Secondly, IRIS², you said we're getting to a kind of kickoff phase now that the formalities were done at the end of last year. I've seen recent press talk about some countries looking to potentially pursue alternative single-country networks. How would that fit in with IRIS²?
Is that something that could run in parallel, or are they maybe wavering a bit on the IRIS² participation? Lastly, thank you for providing the pro forma numbers. Just on a quick scan, something that stands out is the lease liabilities at Intelsat. I see that as a percentage of the net debt, it is materially higher than what is at SES. Is that as a function of the third-party capacity that Intelsat leases, or is there anything else going on? If that is the case, is that a big driver of the, I guess, OpEx saving as they move from third-party capacity onto your own capacity? Thank you.
Very good. Thank you, Roshan. Let me start, and then Sandeep will tackle the last question. Look, the increase of capacity that is coming in, like 30% that I mentioned, remember, Roshan, it is not the two satellites.
It's the network, right? As we add these 100% healthy satellites, we're increasing the capacity of the network. M-Power is not single satellite connectivity. It's a network connectivity, right? Those satellites are all connected. They all talk to each other. They all carry traffic. As they move around the world, traffic gets switched between different satellites. As the ships or planes travel, beams get switched between the different satellites to continue the service of these clients. For us, it's a tricky thing, right? We didn't want to sell this capacity ahead of time because we always want to make sure our launches and tests are 100% successful. It's very frustrating to our salespeople because they know it's coming. They start preparing the pipeline, yet they can't really sign contracts until we tell them, "Go.
Now you can sign the contracts. The go is starting in May, and we expect that this incremental 30% capacity will be sold very quickly, right? Because we are sold out on the other capacity, we expect it to be taken up quite quickly. Our challenge, as I said earlier, is to make sure we pick the best contracts for SES, which is not always easy with our clients, right? Because you want to serve every client successfully, but we will choose what's best for us. That is what you'll see happening very, very quickly. The same dynamic is going to happen over time. Now, regarding your question on signals from some of the European Union nations signaling that they want to build their national sovereign constellations, and how does that impact IRIS²?
Again, I would refer you guys to this article that was published by—I don't remember who it is—that was talking about the German Ministry of Defense, Bundeswehr, talking about their architecture and how they want to do. Every nation, Roshan, what we'll do is we'll actually have a mix of things. You can use the U.S. as a blueprint, right, on what they've done. Every nation will try to build certain satellites that are specifically owned by the nation, right? That will include European Union nations. By the way, it exists today. Luxembourg has dedicated satellites, right, that we manage and run for them. Spain does. France does. Germany does. U.K. They all have today their own satellites that they're—and they will continue to have that. That's part of the architecture. They all also understand that is not enough.
They cannot create the scale network and capacity and resilience and density that's needed by owning their own assets themselves. The proxy is the U.S., right, which has a much bigger budget than many of these nations and have invested heavily over many, many decades in space. The U.S. Space Force has declared that they need commercial capacity to augment their own capability in order to create resilience in their network and the demand that they need to fulfill that's not enough with their own satellites. The same thing will happen in Europe. That article that I keep in mind, because it's a very fresh article from yesterday, Germans, they lay out exactly what their architecture is going to look like. They say they'll have their own satellites. They need three orbits, not one.
They need desperately commercial capacity to be part of that. In many instances, the sovereign nation-owned satellites, we play a part as well, right? I gave you an example of Luxembourg. There are others where we have—I am not going to announce them because it is something for the countries to announce. Luxembourg has announced that they use our help and our competitors' help to build their own satellites and manage their own satellites as well. Keep that in mind. The IRIS² continues to be a very important part. You could read the Germans in their article mentioned that IRIS² is very critical of the overall architecture as well. That is going to be a constellation that the European Union has that all of these nations can use and augment that capacity and capability with all of the other networks that they have.
The last point on leases on pro forma statement.
Yes. Roshan and Sandeep, you are right. Absolutely spot on in terms of thinking about this difference in the lease liability primarily arises from a different treatment of the cost of capacity, right, that Intelsat buys. Again, to make a long story short, there are differences in such accounting treatments between U.S. GAAP on which Intelsat has been reporting its results to IFRS results, right, on the accounting basis on which SES reports its results. When we translate some of those contracts in the IFRS accounting, there is an impact of about $200 million, right? In euro terms, about EUR 180 million compared to the amount of lease liability that we had announced as part of the acquisition. The counter is that clearly benefits the cost of sales, right?
Cost of sales goes down to that extent, and the lease liability goes to the corresponding amount. The cost of sales goes down by about EUR 30 million or so, and the counter comes in lease, right? The pro forma results, more details are contained in the F-4. I encourage you all to look at. In summary, long story short there as well, what you would see in adjusted EBITDA, there are several impacts, but the total impact is about EUR 33 million, lower IFRS revenues, lower EBITDA. That EUR 33 million, very importantly, it is all in non-cash revenue and non-cash EBITDA. The non-cash EBITDA from a U.S. GAAP perspective was EUR 175 million.
When you deduct these EUR 33 million, which is pertaining to the non-cash EBITDA, which also becomes lower in IFRS results, non-cash EBITDA now in our consolidated pro forma results is not EUR 175 million. It is EUR 142 million. Again, it's a valuation. It's a left pocket, right pocket. It doesn't impact overall. These are primarily accounting impacts or alignment to SES accounting policies, right? More details are there. Please have a look at it. We have also published a frequently asked question, more clarifications around that. Feel free to have more discussions with our investor relation team, and I'm happy to jump on an additional call if needed.
Great. That's great. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Roshan. Operator, do we have more questions? We've got a bit more time.
Yes, we do.
Before that, just again, as a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We will now move on to our next question from Stephane Beyazian of ODDO BHF . Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much. A couple of follow-up, if that's possible. The first one is on IRIS². The cost for the planned capacity looks relatively higher if we compare to some other projects. I truly understand that we cannot compare apples to apples here. Still, there is a difference, to me. I was wondering if you see any room for revision in potentially the investment as you are moving closer to a closing of that agreement. The second question is more related to what is happening politically in the U.S.
I was just wondering if you have any exposure to some of the, let's say, the cuts or the changes in the U.S. space budget. It seems that there have been some cuts lately, and I was wondering whether you could have any exposure to that. Also, somewhat related to that or not, I was wondering if you have any sort of clarity or visibility on what Starlink is trying to achieve on the C-band. Thank you.
Okay. Very good. Can you just clarify question number two? You said there is some exposure to some U.S. space initiatives. What are you? Budget, I think. Oh, no. Sorry. Budget or tariffs? Is it? I think you asked about budget. Budget. I was more curious about it. Both ways. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Stefan. Let me start with IRIS².
Look, I'm not sure what data you looked at and you used to conclude that the costs are typically higher than other kind of investments. Clearly, a more complex contract or setup that we currently have, which is a public-private partnership contract, requires more administrative capacity and capability. There's no question, right? There are a lot of benefits, of course, for the PPP contracts, but with it comes certain costs, right, that you have to deal with. However, we have built a business case for IRIS² with a very clear IRR requirement. The way we structured the contract with the commission and our consortium partners is that at the final, what's called rendezvous one checkpoint towards the end of the year, beginning of next year, we will be validating the cost, the specs, and the schedule of the contract.
If anything changes that does not deliver the required return on investment for our capital investments, we have the ability to exit the contract. By the way, so does our customer, the commission, if they do not like what the outcome is, and so do the other consortium members who can decide to do that. I mean, we keep emphasizing the discipline we have instilled in ourselves on how to invest capital and how to look for returns and making sure that return on investment capital is where we need it to be, right, especially on these very large contracts. That is how exactly we are going to behave, right, in a very constructive, in a very focused way to find a solution.
If there is no solution or the solution is different and there may be a negotiation of how do we go forward, that's also possible. I want to reassure you that we have all of those different moving pieces under our control and in full understanding and transparency with our customer, right, and what needs to happen. Regarding the potential cuts, look, I have not read anything where there are very specific cuts to space investments except for things outside of the military areas, right? I've seen the NASA discussions. I've seen others, etc. We have not seen yet cuts that are specific in the projects. Let me rephrase that. There are certain projects that we have already seen impacts on, right? USAID is an example, which was a user of some capacity of satellites, as you know, was under tremendous pressure.
As a result, we've seen that pressure translate into reduction of our spend or even cancellation of our spends. On the other hand, there are a bunch of projects that are also accelerating in their investments, right? In aggregate, when you look at the U.S. spend and focus and given our role that we play in the overall Department of Defense activities, especially with our architecture and their deterrence of space architecture, we feel quite comfortable going forward, right, without really knowing what could happen in the future as well. On the other hand, the European spend, I think it was asked earlier, right? I think Halima asked this question of, "How do you see this, right?" We see the demand growing in Europe significantly. It's just not happening today. It's going to happen over the midterm and long term.
I believe if you look at aggregate and the way we're positioned, we're in a good position, right, even if there are more drastic reductions in the U.S., which I don't expect, by the way, because President Trump is a big supporter and very focused on building up space capabilities and not falling behind. We play an important part supporting the national security of the United States and the activities that they have. That's as much as I can tell you on that particular one. Clearly, on your last question, I mean, Starlink is a very formidable, a very important competitor to us. We see what they do. We see what they're doing in different segments. We see what they're doing with their next-generation satellites. We design our strategy to be competitive and to be relevant for our customers.
We feel very good about that. Not just for the fact that alternatives are required. For resilience purposes, you need multi-orbit. That is, of course, a very important factor. We also want to make sure that our solutions are robust. They are a very good alternative for our customers. We feel very good about that, especially as we bring mPOWER up, as we bring IRIS² up, as we launch the next generation of software-defined GEO satellites that continue to play a very important role in many of the multi-orbit solutions. We feel pretty good about where the dynamics are going. Hopefully, Stefan, I answered your question.
Yes. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take our final question, a follow-up from Nick Dempsey of Barclays. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you, guys. I have got one more.
Just looking at the FCC's last meeting, they were talking about a potential proposed rulemaking relating to spectrum sharing and particularly power limits, particularly related to LEO. I just wonder whether that process could have any effect on your business in the US, positive or negative. What do you think the implications could be?
You said FCC, but I think you mean EPFD. Yeah. I was attempting to say. Okay. Nick, yeah, of course, we're very closely connected to all of these different rulings. There's been already a ruling around how do you manage interference between the different NGSO and GEO constellations. Remember, we play in both, right?
On one hand, when it comes to EPFD rules and the power of the satellites and how do you manage the interference between you and your competitors, we both sit at the GEO level and we sit at the MEO level. We're kind of in both camps of needing more power as well as making sure that we're not destroying our neighborhoods with GEO. So far, the U.S. is going through a very structured, very transparent process in deciding on these things. Everybody has a say, right, in terms of providing the FCC our inputs and our views. We have done so. If you go back and look at our comments and filings, you can see where we are and how we are providing solid comments to the FCC, etc.
We are also advocating, Nick, what's important to us because, look, we are global players, right? There are just a handful of global players in the satellite business. We want to make sure that the environment globally is consistent and somehow logically connected. If there are rulings that happen in the U.S. along EPFD limits, but they are not followed by ITU or other countries, it creates complexity for us, right? Because now, as you operate satellites and as you go over certain geographies, you have to operate them in a different way, right? You have to architect the networks in a different way to accommodate the new rulings. By the way, having spoken to the FCC, FCC also plays a very important role on a global stage, right, in coordination and in setting the rulings. I think that will continue.
I don't believe there is a path for FCC to suddenly rule in different ways. They have their points of view. They have their views on how things should be done. There is a lot of coordination, a lot of work. So far, we've seen no impact on our satellite capabilities today or in the future based on what's happening, right? We continue to be very diligent in making sure that we have a voice and making sure that we're connected to both our competitors who are our peers in the industry as well as the other regulatory bodies. I'll tell you, we work very closely with Starlink in coordination, right, especially on these kind of rules because we operate together in space, right? We have to have that ongoing relationship.
Same thing with Kuiper, same thing with Viasat, same thing with Eutelsat and others. That will continue in our industry. That is how space works, actually, right? It does not work if there is no coordination and alignment between regulatory bodies.
Thank you, Nick.
Thank you. That was our last question. I will now hand it back to CEO Adel for closing remarks.
Very good. Listen, thank you, everybody. Thank you for the active questions. Thank you for following us. As you can see, we had a good solid start for 2025. We have a very clear plan how we are going to execute the rest of the year. Very eager to get the transaction closed with Eutelsat, which we now expect to happen in the early part of the second half of 2025.
We see a huge opportunity there to start very, very quickly, integrate the company, drive the synergies as quick as we can, and continue to improve our top line as a company. With that, thank you again for joining us, and we look forward to the next conversation. Thank you. Thanks, everybody.
Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.