VIA SATELLITE: How much focus are the new owners putting on cutting Intelsat’s debt?
McGlade: The real question is: can our business support it? The answer is ‘yes!’ Clearly, over time, we want to de-lever the company, so the key is to make sure that our revenues and profits grow. We are doing everything we can to intelligently grow Intelsat through smart investments.
I think that proper discipline is needed in successfully running a leveraged company. I think in 10-year cycles. I even try to model 15 years so we are not caught up in every quarter. My operating philosophy is the same, whether I was $1 billion in debt or $15 billion in debt: I’d run the company the same. I never want to be in the position to sacrifice the long-term health of the company to accomplish short-term activities. It is about building a fundamentally stronger company.
VIA SATELLITE: What are your plans for Intelsat’s network?
McGlade: Sometimes the other operators try to paint a picture that we are going to cut back because we are highly leveraged. One of the promises I’ve made to our customers was to enhance the quality of our network. Our investment in our terrestrial network has been instrumental in generating growth from new applications. Our terrestrial network is extensive, and we have invested further in upgrading facilities around the world. They are more robust and more resilient. We just enhanced the fiber network in the United States. We are now doing that in Europe. This means more platforms for growth in terms of managed services and added resilience so we can further grow and combine terrestrial capabilities with our satellite segment.
On the satellite side, it is all about getting better utilization out of our space assets. We have done very well over the last couple of years on maximizing our satellite fleet, with in excess of the equivalent of one and a half satellites in incremental marketable capacity as a result of our asset optimization program. We have successfully launched four satellites in the last two years, and Galaxy 19 is slated for launch this month. We plan for capacity growth by customer, by service application and by the economic drivers within each country and region. This allows us to grow our business with our customers in a prudent and responsible way.
VIA SATELLITE: Where do you see your growth coming from?
McGlade: We feel good about how our business is growing. We are different from many of the other operators. We have the most diversified business catering to media, network services and government. We are dispersed more globally, operating in more countries than other satellite operators. When you look at the Intelsat business, our media services are performing to plan. Our network services business is growing more quickly than anyone ever anticipated — driven by demand for data networks and wireless networks around the globe. In my view, the government business is performing better than it ever has. It has been run really well, and I am very pleased with the leadership team and how they are performing.
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