[Satellite News 05-10-10] The government of Qatar signed an investment deal with Eutelsat to operate a new high-capacity Ku-band satellite to provide the country with expanded coverage and power across the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, Eutelsat announced May 10.
        The satellite, a follow-on from Eutelsat’s Eurobird 2, will be launched at the end of 2012 and placed at 25.5 degrees East. The satellite aims to secure Ku-band continuity for Eutelsat and additional Ku-band resources for IctQatar, a Qatar government-backed service provider, as well as initiate Ka-band capabilities for both parties.
        “Qatar is pleased to enter into this strategic partnership with Eutelsat with a satellite resource that we have named ŒEs’hail.‚ The agreement is important for us as it will secure our strategic interests in communications capabilities in terms of broadcasting, communications, government services and any other future innovative services that our local market will require,” IctQatar secretary general Hessa Al Jaber said in a statement.
       Jawad Abbassi, CEO of Arab Advisors, told Satellite News that the deal is significant for the Middle East satellite landscape. “This development underscores the heightened interest amongst Arab governments to launch state-of-the-art satellites to meet future demand and help spur economic growth. Most of the Arab countries are shareholders in Arabsat (with Saudi being the largest shareholder), Egypt has Nilesat, UAE will launch Yahsat, and now Qatar will have its own as well — certainly a positive development and good news for consumers as capacity increases should result in healthy competition,” he said.
        Separately, Eutelsat Communications announced that its third quarter 2009-2010 revenues grew 13.4 percent to 268.3 million euros ($344.4 million), which has caused the company to upgrade its year-end projections.
        The company saw across-the-board growth in all of its sectors this quarter, with video application revenues jumping 10 percent to 189.6 million euros ($243.3 million), added services revenues climbing 22.8 percent to 52 million euros ($66.7 million) and multi-usage segment revenues increasing 27.5 percent to 25.1 million euros ($32.2 million) compared to the same period in 2009.
        Eutelsat CEO Michel de Rosen, encouraged by the operator’s position nine months into 2010, revised Eutelsat’s full-year, top-line guidance from 1.02 billion euros ($1.3 billion) to 1.04 billion euros ($1.33 billion). “This remarkable performance is a result of the sustained increase in demand in the regions covered by our fleet, and the increase in satellite capacity we have achieved with our new satellites as well as rapid redeployment of existing in-orbit resources,” de Rosen said in a statement.
        Eutelsat also reported that it refinanced all of its 1.3 billion euros ($1.66 billion) in existing credit agreements that were due in November 2011. At the end of March, the operator was issued a five-year, senior, unsecured revolving credit facility of 450 million euros ($577.6 million) and an 850 million euro, seven-year senior unsecured bond issue at 4.1 percent interest. The operator said the refinancing has allowed the company to extend the maturity of its financing from 2.7 years as of December 2009 to 5.3 years as of March 2010.