SES will keep its Luxembourg headquarters in Betzdorf following its planned redundancies and the upcoming merger with Intelsat.
In a series of interviews with local media in the Grand Duchy, CEO Adel Al-Saleh said approximately 600 staff – out of a total of 2,000 – would remain in Luxembourg. 68 employees are expected to lose their jobs in the redundancy round announced last December.
“We need talent everywhere to remain competitive. And we cannot forget that Betzdorf is our headquarters and will always be important.”
Assuming the planned merger with Intelsat goes ahead, Al-Saleh confirmed several positions would be eliminated, but said these were more likely to take place at management level than with engineers and technical staff. However, there is still a need for a restructuring.
“Our costs are too high in several areas. We need money for our investments. One way to achieve this is to cut costs so that we can invest this money. This has nothing to do with the acquisition of Intelsat or India. As a company, we need to streamline.”
Should the acquisition of the American operator Intelsat go through, several positions will become redundant. According to the CEO, this issue will arise more at the management level than among engineers and technical staff.
Earlier this week, SES was forced to issue a trading update saying it was anticipating “better than expected” revenues when its full-year 2024 results are published later this month.
The statement followed the decision by Moody’s Ratings to change its outlook on the satellite operator from “stable” to “negative”.
