Satmex’s control center in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico, will soon be acquired by Eutelsat, giving the company access to one of Latin America’s leading satellite operators. Image credit: Satmex

[Satellite TODAY 07-31-13] Eutelsat will pay more than $1.1 billion to acquire 100 percent of Satélites Mexicanos (Satmex), one of Latin America’s leading satellite operators in a major statement of intent about its ambitions in this region. The deal is made of $831 million of capital and Eutelsat taking on a net debt of around $311 million. Eutelsat announced the deal Wednesday, and expects it to close by the end of the year.

       The acquisition marks Eutelsat’s second major announcement related to Latin America in the past 24 hours. On July 30, the company announced that it was ordering a new high-capacity satellite designed to serve dynamically-expanding video and broadband markets in Brazil and across Latin America. Eutelsat selected Space Systems/Loral (SSL) to manufacture the Eutelsat 65 West A satellite that will be launched and operational in early 2016.

     The two moves signify a bold strategy from Eutelsat to become a major force in Latin America. In an interview earlier this year with Via Satellite, Eutelsat’s CEO Michel de Rosen had hinted that boosting the company’s presence in Latin America was a vital target for the company. “One of the key events for us in 2012 was to stake out a place in the Asia-Pacific region and we will look to further solidifying this step in 2013. We are also looking for growth in other directions, specifically Latin America,” he said.

      Satmex currently has three satellites in orbit, and two being procured. It has an optimal position in Mexico and three orbital positions that can be developed (114.9 degrees west, 113 degrees west and 116.8 degrees west). Both Eutelsat and Satmex also have additional frequency rights in the region. Satmex has around an 11 percent market share in Latin America, which puts it on a similar level to SES and Hispasat. Intelsat and Star One are the two biggest players in the region.

     Satmex already had plans to launch its Boeing-manufactured Satmex 7 and Satmex 9 satellites in 2015. In a presentation this morning, Eutelsat highlighted a number of the attractions behind the deal. It says Satmex has a backlog of $242 million as of March this year, a strong customer retention rates, as well as a 10-year relationships with top clients. It pointed to what it calls a blue-chip customer base across broadcasting, telecoms and data transmission/Internet, and specifically named companies such as Grupo Televisa, America Movil Peru, and Telmex, as being key customers.

     The acquisition announcement was unexpected for industry experts. Maxime Baudry, a satellite analyst at French telecoms consultancy, IDATE, had been expecting the company to make a deal in Asia rather than Latin America.

     “We were quite surprised by Eutelsat’s deal as we were expecting such a deal but more in the Asia Pacific region, where Eutelsat has lately been quite active in trying to grow its business, notably through its relationship with Hispamar,” he told SatelliteTODAY.com. “The deal with Satmex is certainly a fantastic opportunity for the company as the Latin American region presents great business growth opportunities and is characterized by a larger part of population with high incomes and having the opportunity to subscribe to DTH offers with much higher ARPUs than in Sub-Saharan Africa for instance.”

     Eric Beaudet, a satellite equity analyst at Natixis Securities hailed the deal in a research note calling it “a major positive” for Eutelsat noting that “it will give it access to the Latin America market, which is one of the fastest growing in the world (+7.3 percent capacity CAGR over 2011/2016 according to Euroconsult vs. 3 percent for the industry as a whole). Secondly, M&A in the sector has been, in the past, a positive for the buyer as it is clearly a fixed-cost business and synergies are to be found (salesforce, ground networks…) and finally, the price paid (9.7x EBITDA) does seem reasonable (SEStrades at 10x) even though this ratio does include some upcoming contracts and 100 million euros of Tax-losses carry forward,” Beaudet said.

      Baudry is confident that the Latin American market has great growth potential for Eutelsat. “In the region, IDATE expects the number of transponders for satellite TV increasing by 180 over the next five years to reach 534 transponders for satellite TV (eq. 36 MHz) by 2017. According to our latest findings, the satellite-TV subscriber base of the Latin America moved from 30 million households in 2009 to more than 53 million in 2012, of which 45 percent are pay-TV subscribers. Alone, Brazil recorded nearly 28 million satellite-TV households in 2012. This is more than France and Germany’s satellite-TV household bases combined,” he said.