Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the conference call to report the fourth quarter 2020 financial results for Telesat. Our speakers today will be Dan Goldberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of Telesat, and Andrew Browne, Chief Financial Officer of Telesat. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Michael Bolitho, Director of Treasury and Risk Management. Please go ahead, Mr. Bolitho.
Thank you, and good morning. Earlier today, we issued a news release containing Telesat's consolidated financial results for the three-month and one-year periods ended December 31, 2020. This news release is available on Telesat's website at www.telesat.com under the tab Investors. We also filed our annual report on Form 20-F with the SEC this morning. Our remarks today may contain forward-looking statements. There are risks that Telesat's actual results may differ materially from the results contemplated by the forward-looking statements as a result of known and unknown risks and uncertainties. For additional information about known risks, we refer you to the Risk Factors section of our annual report on Form 20-F for the 2020 fiscal year filed with the SEC today. The information that we are discussing today reflects our expectations as of today and is subject to change.
Except as required by securities laws, Telesat disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update or revise this information, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. I will now turn the call over to Dan Goldberg, Telesat's President and Chief Executive Officer.
Okay, Michael, thank you. Apologies to everybody for the late start. Our conference provider was having some technical difficulties, so thanks for sticking with us. This morning, I'll discuss our fourth quarter and full-year results and give an update on the business. I'll then hand over to Andrew Browne, who will speak to the numbers in more detail, and then we'll open the call up to questions. Looking first at the full-year numbers and adjusting for foreign exchange rate changes, revenue was down 10% relative to the prior year. Operating expenses were 9% higher. Adjusted EBITDA was 14% lower, and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 79.6% compared to 83.7% in the prior period.
The revenue decrease was due to lower short-term services provided to other satellite operators, the non-renewal by Shaw at the end of Q3 2019 of one of its DTH contracts, the end of the non-cash revenue amortization period of a large prepayment we received years ago from WildBlue on our Anik F2 satellite, and the impact of COVID-19, particularly on customers serving the aeronautical and maritime markets. Roughly 60% of the revenue decline last year was from the Shaw non-renewal and the end of the WildBlue prepayment amortization, the impact of which have been cycled through our results at this point. The increase in operating expenses last year was due to higher professional fees related to higher bad debt expense related to customers hurt by the pandemic.
Our planned roll-up transaction, higher in-orbit insurance expense, and higher wages due principally to increased headcount to support development of our Lightspeed LEO satellite constellation. Turning to the fourth quarter and adjusting for FX, revenue was down 7% relative to Q4 2019 as a result of lower short-term satellite services provided to other operators. Operating expenses and adjusted EBITDA were both 7% lower, and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 79.5%, which was pretty much flat with Q4 2019. Turning to some key metrics, backlog at the end of 2020 was CAD 2.7 billion, and fleet utilization was 81%. Looking at how our revenues broke down on an application basis in 2020, broadcast was 50% of total revenue, enterprise services 48%, and consulting another 2%. On a geographic basis for the year, North America accounted for 82% of revenue, Latin America 8%, EMEA 5%, and Asia 5%.
I'm particularly pleased with all the good work we did last year to position Telesat for future growth, including announcing the roll-up transaction and taking steps to realize value from our desirable C-band spectrum rights, both of which can help us fund our growth plans, including the Lightspeed constellation. Last month, we announced that we'd selected Thales Alenia Space to build Lightspeed and also that the government of Quebec is making a significant investment in the project. There's some background noise. Operator, I don't know if you can do something about that. Lightspeed is the most advanced LEO broadband constellation under development and will give Telesat and our customers a decisive competitive advantage in serving the global enterprise broadband connectivity market, helping to bridge the digital divide around the world and fueling our growth for years to come.
We expect to complete financing for the project in the coming months, launch the first Lightspeed satellites in roughly two years' time, with customer beta testing beginning shortly thereafter, and start commercial services in the second half of 2023. Looking ahead to the balance of this year, we remain strongly focused on a number of key priorities, including commercializing our available in-orbit satellite capacity, maintaining our operating discipline, executing on the Lightspeed constellation, leveraging our valuable C-band rights, and completing the roll-up transaction. Promises to be a very busy year. With that, I'll hand over to Andrew and then look forward to addressing any questions that you might have.
Thank you, Dan. Good morning, everyone. I would now like to focus on highlights from this morning's press release and filings. In 2020, Telesat reported revenues of CAD 820 million, adjusted EBITDA of CAD 653 million, and generated CAD 279 million of free cash flow, and with over CAD 800 million of cash on the balance sheet at year-end. During 2020, Telesat repaid $355.7 million of debt, including $341.4 million during the fourth quarter. For the full year 2020 when compared to the same period in 2019, revenues decreased by CAD 90 million to CAD 820 million, operating expenses increased by CAD 15 million to CAD 181 million, and adjusted EBITDA decreased by CAD 109 million to CAD 653 million. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 79.6% as compared to 83.7% in 2019.
Between 2019 and 2020, changes in the U.S. dollar exchange rate had a positive impact of $3 million on revenues, a positive impact of $1 million on operating expenses, and a positive impact of $4 million on adjusted EBITDA. When adjusted for the changes in Forex rates, revenues decreased by CAD 87 million for 2020 when compared to 2019. Operating expenses increased by CAD 15 million, Adjusted EBITDA decreased by CAD 106 million. The revenue decline was partially driven by two contracts we anticipated and discussed on our prior calls. Firstly, the non-renewal by Shaw at the end of Q3 2019 of one of its DTH contracts. Secondly, the end of non-cash revenue amortization period of a very large payment that we received several years ago from WildBlue, now Viasat, on our Anik F2 satellite.
In addition, we also had lower short-term services provided to other satellite operators and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The increase in operating expenses for 2020 was due to higher professional fees relating to proposed rollout transactions, higher bad debt expenses related to customer impacts by COVID-19, higher in-orbit insurance expense, and higher compensation expenses due principally to increased headcount to support the development of our Telesat Lightspeed lower orbit satellite constellation. Comparing the fourth quarter of 2020 with the same period in 2019, revenue decreased by CAD 18 million to CAD 202 million, operating expenses decreased by CAD 3 million, and adjusted EBITDA decreased by CAD 15 million to CAD 160 million. Depreciation and amortization decreased by CAD 6 million during the fourth quarter and decreased by CAD 32 million for the full year.
The decreases were mainly due to the end of useful life for accounting purposes of our Anik F2 satellite in May 2019 and our Anik F1R satellite. Interest expense decreased by CAD 16 million in the fourth quarter and by CAD 55 million for the full year 2020 when compared to the same period in 2019. Decreases mainly due to lower interest rates on debt following Telesat's refinancing in 2019. The gains and losses on financial instruments reflect changes in the fair values of our interest rate swaps and the prepayment options on our senior and senior secured notes. In 2020, we also recorded a gain on foreign exchange of CAD 147 million during the fourth quarter and a gain on foreign exchange of CAD 48 million for the full year. Tax expense increased by CAD 19 million during the year ended 31st December when compared to the same period in 2019.
For 2020, the cash inflows from operating activities were CAD 372 million, and the cash outflows used in investing activities were CAD 93 million, in excess of 80% of the total capital expenditures related to our lower orbit constellation. For 2021, we expect our cash flows used in investing activities to be in the range of US$140 million-US$160 million, including capital expenditures to further advance our Lightspeed program while we finalize our financing arrangements. Subject to the progress of our financing, there may be meaningful additional CapEx this year in connection with Lightspeed as we move into full production. We expect to happen in the coming months, and we look to update our CapEx guidance accordingly at that time.
To meet our expected cash requirements for the next 12 months, including interest payments and capital expenditures, we have CAD 880 million of cash and short-term investments at the end of December, as well as approximately USD 200 million of borrowings available under our revolving credit facility. Approximately CAD 676 million in cash was held in our unrestricted subsidiaries. In addition, we continue to generate a significant amount of cash from our ongoing operating activities. We noted that Telesat had paid down debt by USD 355.7 million during the year, mainly during the fourth quarter. Also in December, with the development and financing of our constellation, Telesat transferred assets to certain unrestricted subsidiaries related to the Telesat Lightspeed network, including NGSO spectrum, U.S. market access rights, certain IP, certain fixed assets, as well as certain C-band assets, together with the right to receive proceeds from repurposing.
Concurrently with these transfers, Telesat contributed $193 million in cash to Telesat LEO Holdings Inc., which is an unrestricted subsidiary of Telesat. With the prepayment of the debt, as mentioned, pro forma leverage under the amended senior secured credit facilities was less than 4.5 times to one. As of December 31st, the fiscal amount under the amended senior secured facilities was CAD 182 million, reflecting the use of certain baskets to facilitate the asset transfers and the results of fourth quarter activity. At the end of 2020, Telesat has complied with all the covenants in our credit agreements and indentures. A reconciliation between our financial statements and financial covenant calculation is provided in the report we filed this morning.
That concludes our prepared remarks for this call, and now very happy to answer any questions you may have, and we will turn back to the operator. Thank you.
Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question and you are using a speaker phone, please let your handset before making a selection. If you have a question please press star one on your device's keypad. You may cancel your question anytime by pressing star two. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause for participants to register. Thank you for your patience. The first question is from Mike Pace of JPM organ. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I'm not sure where to start, but I'll start with Dan, just from big picture. I think, you announced the satellite manufacturer news, and then I think you were quoted in some articles about the LEO project cost, and I thought I saw upwards of CAD 5 billion. Anything you can confirm, add, or correct on that?
Hey, Mike. Good morning. We announced the Thales Alenia Space contract probably about a month ago now. At the time we made that announcement, we said that that contract had a value of approximately $3 billion, and that the total CapEx associated with the Lightspeed program, so satellites, launch vehicles, landing stations, things like that, was approximately $5 billion. Yeah, we can confirm that.
Got you. Maybe Canadian C-bands, is there anything to update on us here? Maybe just your best guess on what happens next and timing?
Yeah, that's a good question. In truth, we don't have great insight into the timing about when the government's going to take a decision. It's certainly ripe for a decision. Comments, reply comments. The record is kind of ripe for action. The government of Canada has said that they plan to auction 3500 MHz spectrum by the end of June of this year. I think it would be handy for all the operators who are thinking about participating in that auction to know about the availability of other mid-band spectrum that might be coming. I don't know. If I had to guess, I would think that the government would come out and take a decision and provide some guidance about other mid-band spectrum prior to that time, but I'm not sure. We're still waiting on that right now.
Okay. I do have a few questions on the restricted group and unrestricted group. I don't know, for Andrew or Mike or even you, Dan, if you want to give this a shot here. I see the term loan paydown in the fourth quarter. You moved cash over and other assets, including the C-band spectrum. My question is, I don't know what the best way is for you guys to answer this, but maybe starting with September 30, what your RP builder basket was at that point in time, and then what it was at year-end 2020.
Okay, Mike. It's Michael Bolitho. The answer to that was the RP builder basket, I'll use US equivalent numbers, was the equivalent in Canadian dollar terms of about $1.6 billion as of the 30th of September. We transferred the assets on the 31st of December. The builder basket as of December 31 was approximately $140 million.
Okay, trying to do quick math Canadian here then, plus fourth quarter build. Okay, $1.4 billion-$1.5 billion US dollars, close to CAD 2 billion. I guess I understand the cash and the C-band value there, but is there something else that you can tell us about the other assets and, in particular, how you're valuing the Canadian C-band within that mix?
This is Dan, I'll take this one. We've identified all the different assets that got transferred over. To help us get our arms around the values of the different assets that we moved over, we worked with an external firm to make sure that we had confidence about the values that we were assigning. That's more or less, Mike, the process that we went through. Yeah, we were quite rigorous about it.
Got it. Back to Mike or Andrew, do you still have access to your general baskets for RP and permitted investments that hasn't been used?
That is correct. The general basket of $150 million is open, Mike.
Okay.
As is the CAD 500 million unrestricted subsidiary basket.
Just one more because this is tough for us on the outside looking in. If you're moving all these assets over to the LEO group or the unrestricted group, spectrum and other IP and other assets, does the GEO group or your core business still utilize these assets, and will the GEO group need to pay the LEO group for the use of these assets on a go-forward basis?
The answer to the question is yes to both.
That's all I have. Thank you. I'll get back in queue.
Thank you. The next question is from Walter Piecyk of LightShed. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Thanks for the commentary in the press release about the C-band. Just a little follow-up on that. In your proposal, you had mentioned the value, to the bidders of knowing the availability of the spectrum prior to and auctioning your spectrum, prior to the 3.5 that's getting auctioned by the end of June. I'm just curious, how quickly I think you referred to in your proposal maybe an agreement with Auctionomics or the plan to use them toward a structure, a private sale, of your own. If the government basically, or the regulator said that that was okay, how soon would you have to know in order for Auctionomics or whoever's designing how you would sell that asset, how much time would they need to conduct a process that you think the government should be okay with?
Assuming that you want to try and get this, and that the bidders would want to have this stuff auctioned prior to the 3.5 auction.
Yeah. It's Dan, Walter. It's a good question. I've been a little bit less close to the mechanics of exactly how that would all work were we to get authority to do it. But my guess is it would take a couple of months, from the time a decision is taken, from the time that we'd be ready to conduct an auction like that, something like that.
At this point, given that the government hasn't really said anything, IFTP, it's probably difficult, I guess, to get that stuff auctioned prior to the 3.5. Now we're just on a timeline of, doesn't it make sense for them to make this auction happen at least on a similar timeline, maybe third quarter, fourth quarter, ideally, so the operators can figure out how they want to allocate their spectrum for 5G?
Yeah, no, that's probably right. If the government holds to its schedule for 3.5, which I think they will, but I'm not sure. They've delayed it once already. I haven't heard about any further delays, but you can never rule it out.
Right. That's a fair point. They could theoretically come out, approve the C-band, and at the same time say, "Okay, we're just going to slide this back a quarter," to try and have them simultaneous or a different timeline, I guess. There's been no indication. Yeah, I know. We're just speculating right now.
Yeah. Exactly.
Okay. On the LEO, let's assume for whatever reason, there's obviously high demand for 5G spectrum, as we've seen in the U.S., and the numbers are very large, and you've got significant capital, and you raise significant cheap capital. Is there any way to accelerate the LEO timeline from what you've already outlined?
Probably not. The reality is, we're planning to start launching satellites in about two years' time. The satellites that we're building, they're advanced satellites. They've got process payloads and phased array antennas and beam hopping and inter-satellite links. No, I think that the timeline that we've articulated is a realistic timeline, but I think trying to accelerate it would be hard.
Got it. Then just lastly, in terms of just your core GEO business, it looked like enterprise was up sequentially for the first time in quite some time. Maybe that was a drop out of some contract you kind of lapped over. When you think about 2021, is there ability to kind of sustain this run rate of CAD 200 million of revenue? Do you think you're still going to face some kind of struggles in terms of Dish or whoever else that will not want to renew some of their satellites on the broadcast side?
I'm sorry, Walter, when you were talking about outlook for the business, were you focused on enterprise or the business more broadly?
Well, no, I was just pointing out that that was a kind of a bright spot, I guess you would call it, right?
Yeah.
You generated some potential growth. Obviously, that did not extend to broadcast, which you outlined the issues that impacted that in the quarter.
Yeah.
I kind of mixed my stuff together. I said enterprise is looking pretty good, how does that translate to the overall bit? Okay.
Yeah. First off, I'd just observe, we haven't given guidance in the past beyond CapEx guidance and we're not going to start right at this very moment.
Okay.
I would say that there were definitely some headwinds that we confronted throughout 2020. Yes, for sure, the non-renewal on Shaw and that amortizing that prepayment from WildBlue, that accounted for, I said around, in my opening remarks, about 60% of the total year-over-year revenue decline. That's now cycled through. Barring something unforeseen, we're not expecting to have the kind of headwinds, the kind of top-line pressure that we had in 2020. Yeah, it's a fair question. It's a fair observation, and given that we have cycled through those two big factors. Yeah, that puts us in a different position as we go into 2021. Sadly, COVID is still present. It is going to continue to restrain our ability to get back on track with our aeronautical customers, with our maritime customers.
They're still very much suffering from COVID. It's not our expectation that this year we're going to be facing the kind of headwinds that we had to face in 2020.
Understood. If you don't mind, I just want to sneak one last one in. On the CAD 5 billion.
Last one.
Well, just the last one.
Good.
On the CAD 5 billion number for the LEO build, there's a lot of investment dollars going into LEO generically, right? I get that your optical links obviously add cost that others might not be putting in, blah, blah. Launch costs are coming down. What are the dynamics that could take that CAD 5 billion number either 20% higher or 20% lower? Is the way this business works is that it's going to basically be pretty tightly within that range of CAD 5 billion?
It should be. The reality is the contracts that we're entering into are pretty much fixed price contracts. The big CapEx is obviously on the satellites and the launch vehicles. We feel good about that CAD 5 billion number. Over the course of a program, could things happen that pressure it slightly? Could it get delayed or something like that? Potentially. In the main, these are fixed price contracts, we feel a high level of conviction around that's what it should be looking like.
Got it. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Tim Lash of Twin Oak Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Hi. Quick question on the global enterprise satellite broadband market that you're targeting with the LEO. Do you have any initial estimates you could share with us for what that addressable market is? I'm particularly curious because it's a market you've largely been in North America to date, and I'm curious what you anticipate the size of the addressable market being once you get the LEO up in the air. Any thoughts on that would be helpful.
Yeah. You know what, Tim? The 20F that we filed this morning has a pretty detailed discussion around our view of what the TAM is for our LEO constellation. Have a look at that and you'll see that, and we've gone to some pains to emphasize it. We're not focused on the consumer broadband market. We're very much focused on the market that we've been serving for decades now, which is the enterprise broadband connectivity market, and to be even more specific, backhauling for telcos, mobile network operators, ISPs, and other enterprise users, providing broadband connectivity to the aeronautical market, the maritime market, and the government market. The TAM that we describe in our 20-F is really focused on those enterprise verticals. Have a look at that. I'm looking. The number that we put in, I think I know what it is.
I just want to-
CAD 365 billion, I believe.
$365 billion.
Yeah, U.S. $365 billion U.S., it's on page 44.
There you go, Michael.
Okay. Thank you. Just a follow-up. Should we anticipate a stream of regional wholesale partner agreements that'll sort of be announced between now and system launch, or will those types of agreements tend to come after the network goes up?
I think that as we look, we've already got a non-trivial amount of backlog on the Lightspeed constellation. We announced this deal that we did with the Government of Canada to bridge the digital divide in Canada. There we said that was a CAD 600 million contract with the government over a 10-year period that we expect to be matched by an equal amount from the users of that capacity, which we expect will be ISPs and telcos and maybe some government users throughout Canada. In our minds, that's kind of north of CAD 1 billion. We announced that Thales is making a capacity commitment in connection with the agreement that we announced with them to build the constellation. We've announced one of our longstanding customers, OmniAccess, which provides broadband connectivity to the high-end, kind of superyacht market, that they've made a commitment.
We've already got a meaningful amount of backlog on Lightspeed. For sure, consistent with the way that we've been doing business for years, as we get closer to launch, we're going to be out there, we already are, engaging with customers and all of those different verticals that I mentioned, signing and announcing more deals. Yeah, that's our expectation. Backlog will grow as we get closer to service launch.
Great. Just one final question. Any update on the progress with the export credit agencies? Any progress there?
We're well engaged with them, and have been for quite some time, and we're feeling confident that we're going to be able to close financing arrangements with them. We've said in the coming months. That's what I would say. We're not totally done yet, but based on all the interactions we're having, based on the other support that we're getting for the project, we announced this significant investment by the government of Quebec a couple of weeks ago. We feel good about where we are in our discussions with the export credit agencies and where we are on the financing of the project, just kind of broadly speaking. I think in the coming months, we'll have that completed.
Sounds good. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Rad Antonov of Linden Advisors. Please go ahead. Your line is now open. If you are using a speaker phone please let the handset to unmute your line.
My questions have been answered. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Andy Searle. Please state your company and proceed with your question. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning. AlixPartners. Just a couple of quick questions or one quick one. With the transfer of the assets, it looked like the way it was described, it was sent into two different entities. Is there a reason for that or what should we look into, read into that? The cash was sent to one entity, and it looked like it was described as the other assets were sent to a different entity.
It's Chris DiFrancesco speaking. The LEO-related assets, the IP and the like, all went into the LEO unrestricted subsidiary and the C-band assets went into a sister unrestricted subsidiary.
Okay. Looking forward over the intermediate term, can you describe how you're thinking about what type of reinvestment is needed in the GEO satellite constellation, de-levering use of cash flow from the GEO business to utilize the remaining investment in RP buckets for the LEO? Any guidance there would be very helpful.
Andy, I might ask you to repeat the second question, but This is Dan. I'll address the first one, if you could ask the second piece again, that'd be helpful. On GEO, as our satellites come up for replacement, we'll just go one by one. We'll do what we always do. We won't astonish you. We make capital investments when we've got a strong business case to support them. It's certainly my expectation that we'll be replacing a lot of our GEO satellite. It's going to be totally driven by, on the broadcast side, on the DTH side. Those are conversations with each of those customers. That's Bell, Shaw, and Dish. Right now they are each using two satellites. We'll just go one by one with them in those discussions. For the other satellites, yeah, kind of the same thing.
A lot of our satellites have still significant life left on them, and so we're not, for a lot of them, kind of confronting that question right now in terms of where we are from a replacement perspective. Beyond that, on GEO, I still think that there will be opportunities to maybe launch some new satellites and grow that business. We've talked before about a very long-standing program with the Government of Canada. This is requirements that they have for connectivity in the far, far north. Beyond the line of sight of GEO, really, and Telesat's been pursuing that opportunity for quite some time, and I continue to believe it's a matter of when, not if.
Beyond that, we've done a good job of securing rights to expansion frequencies and orbital locations, and we'll be opportunistically looking for ways to develop those slots if, again, there's a compelling business case to do that. Andy, could you repeat the second part of your question? You had asked about baskets and whatnot, but I didn't follow it entirely.
I was just wanting to try to understand how you were thinking about utilization of cash flow, right? To me, the buckets seem to be, you need to think about the coming days when you will need to reinvest in the GEO satellite constellation. You have debt outstanding that you could utilize free cash flow to de-lever, and then there's remaining investment, an RP basket available that more proceeds could be put in to the unrestricted subsidiaries. I was just trying to get a sense as to how you were thinking about it. There's various extremes depending upon, I would think a lot of it is predicated upon your outlook for opportunity in the GEO business and the LEO business. Just wanted to get an understanding as to your thinking a little bit longer term to the utilization of that cash flow.
What would I say there? Here again, I guess I'd just say, right now we're focused on completing the financing of the LEO constellation, and we feel good about our ability, as I said, to get that done in the coming months. At the end of the year, we did the asset transfer to principally support that activity. I think we've always been pretty clear that one of the sources of financing that we saw for LEO was leveraging our C-band spectrum. A lot of what we did, at the end of the year was to facilitate that and the follow-through on that. I'd say going forward, yeah, we'll continue to be, I'd say, open-minded about availing ourselves of baskets and what other flexibility we have to support the broader business, including Lightspeed.
I think that's how we'll think about how we manage the cash flow and the balance sheet and whatnot going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Jonathan Krotman of Rumberg Capital. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Dan, did you find it interesting that regulators attached the Telesat proposal to repurpose Canadian C-band to their request for comments? How would you summarize the feedback that has come back from the various Canadian stakeholders on our proposal?
I'm told that the Canadian regulator doing that, which is to say, attaching a proposal from a company as part of a consultation, I'm told that was unprecedented. Which we took as a positive sign that there was at least some level of receptivity to entertaining our proposal and finding a mechanism to solicit broader industry views on it. Yeah. We thought that was a positive. Then on the feedback. The feedback, fundamentally, we received mostly good support from what I'd call the larger incumbent telcos and mobile network operators for the project.
I think by and large, they all and this wasn't a surprise, they all would like this spectrum, because it's pretty obvious that they need more mid-band spectrum if they're really going to roll out true 5G in Canada, much like what the experience was in the U.S., that C-band spectrum was really needed to do that. Pretty much the same situation exists on this side of the border. By and large, we got support from most of the big telcos. A lot of the smaller folks were less supportive of the proposal. I've got my own thoughts about why they did that. Maybe I'll share a little of that. Fundamentally, I think, they know that the bigger operators are spectrum-constrained right now, and it probably doesn't break their hearts that those bigger operators should remain spectrum-constrained.
It impedes their ability to make big investments and roll 5G out fast. For the smaller guys, having the larger folks make those investments and roll 5G out fast, that's probably threatening to them. I don't think that's a great public policy outcome. I don't think that's great for Canadians that they should be deprived a great 5G experience just because maybe some of the smaller guys don't want to face that competitive environment. My own guess, that's certainly not what they said in their comments, my own guess is that's where a lot of those guys were coming from. Anyway, it's now up to the regulator to make some decisions about what to do.
We think we made a really good case about why our proposal advances the broader public policy considerations that the government cares about, getting real 5G out there for Canadians, stimulating competition, and leveling the playing field in the global satellite industry. The reality is, we've got two big competitors that we compete with in Canada and around the rest of the world that got billions and billions and billions of dollars from this U.S. process, and they're taking those proceeds, and they're investing them in ways that are going to present a competitive challenge to Telesat. We think it would be a very unfair outcome if our own regulator were to take our spectrum without providing us with proceeds that we can invest. We've said that we'd invest all of those proceeds in our Lightspeed constellation.
Anyway, it's over to them right now, and we're waiting for that decision.
If we were to get a 200 MHz flexible use license for our Canadian C-band, how quickly could we monetize that? For example, could we engage in near-term commercial transactions with other Canadian carriers and then work to clear the spectrum on the follow?
First off, we've proposed that we would clear 300 MHz of spectrum. Yes, we said the 200 MHz would come back to Telesat. We're on the record saying that we will conduct a very transparent, open auction that one and all can come and participate in. We even said that we were receptive to a set-aside of 50 MHz of that 200 MHz that would be available just for new entrants to promote what the government thinks is a good way to stimulate competition. We think that once if were the government to take that decision and authorize us to do that, we could get out there in the near term and get that auction done because the operators need that spectrum.
The only way they're going to roll out really good, capable, affordable 5G is if that spectrum's made available to them and made available quickly. That's what we say.
One last question on LEO. We have global Ka-band priority spectrum rights. How do other future LEO participants that come at Lightspeed, how do they compete against Lightspeed without those rights?
That's a great question. The U.S. in its licensing rounds, has kind of taken its own approach. They've put less weight on ITU priorities, where we'll see what other countries do. I've been in this industry for a very long time. We think it's essential to have strong ITU priority spectrum rights, whether you're in GEO or MEO or LEO. I think it is a challenge that operators who don't enjoy those priority rights, I think it's a challenge that they're going to have. It's a regulatory risk for them that we're not going to have to confront. We'll have to see how it plays out in countries around the world. We certainly feel that we're in a more comfortable position having those priority rights.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The last question is from Barry Jin. Please state your company and proceed with your question.
Hi, this is Barry Jin from SuMi TRUST. Thanks for taking the question. Do you guys currently have a leverage target for the GEO and LEO satellite?
This is Dan. Because I've got a little more history on what we said before than Andrew does. Andrew's been with us now for, I don't know, a year and a half or something like that. What we've said in the past is that given the amount of contractual backlog we have, given the fairly predictable nature of the satellite service business, that we've been comfortable operating Telesat with leverage somewhere around four to five times, something like that, and CapEx cycles kind of peak and whatnot. In the main, I don't think there's anything that's dramatically changed in the environment that would cause us to think differently over the long term to operate like that.
Maybe over the very long term, particularly, if and when Telesat is public over the long term, probably have leverage that would be even a little bit lower still than the 4x . Just the nature of the satellite business, capital spending is lumpy. Certainly now, as we finance Lightspeed on a consolidated basis, our leverage will be meaningfully higher than that 4-5 times. It's our expectation, and we've said that the Lightspeed program is approximately $5 billion in CapEx. When you think about that on a consolidated basis, our leverage will grow meaningfully above that 4-5 times.
Again, then the nature of this business, we have said that our Lightspeed satellites will have a useful life of about 10-12 years, and we think that we'll have kind of EBITDA contribution margins not dissimilar to what we've enjoyed on our LEO business. Our expectation is once Lightspeed is in service and we're ramping the utilization, we'll be generating a significant amount of cash and EBITDA, and our leverage ratios will start to de-lever in terms of leverage ratios at a quite accelerated basis. That's what I'd say. I've talked about it on a consolidated basis. It's absolutely the case that our GEO business is in a, I don't know, a credit silo that is non-recourse to how we're funding Lightspeed.
Certainly, if you think about it from those two different credit silos, the LEO credit silo, very highly levered because there's a lot of spending and borrowings, but really no meaningful EBITDA until we're in service and ramping. The GEO credit silo will have, in the coming years, much lower leverage ratios. Obviously barring some unforeseen thing, but that's our expectation.
Got it. Thank you. Just final question. The CAD 5 billion number, I believe in the past you mentioned about two-thirds of that might be funded with debt. Is it safe to assume all that is going into the LEO silo separate from the GEO silo?
Yeah. That's right. We've said order of magnitude, and again, just focused on how Lightspeed will be financed. Yeah, about 1/3 equity, 2/3 debt. Could be more like 40/60, something like that. We're still finalizing that with the lenders. Yeah, it'll look something like that. That's still our expectation.
Great. Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you very much. Operator, thank you, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Apologies again for the late start because of the technical difficulties. We'll be working with our conference service provider to avoid that in the future. Again, thank you very much for your time, and we look forward to speaking with you when we release our Q1 results. Thank you.
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