{"id":841887,"date":"2025-04-18T18:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T23:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/ses-shrinks-board-as-shareholder-calls-for-bigger-changes\/"},"modified":"2025-04-18T18:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T23:12:14","slug":"ses-shrinks-board-as-shareholder-calls-for-bigger-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/ses-shrinks-board-as-shareholder-calls-for-bigger-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"SES shrinks board as shareholder calls for bigger changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<section id=\"content\">\n\t\t<main id=\"main\"><\/p>\n<figure>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img width=\"1200\" height=\"633\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/spacenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/O3b-mPOWER-Constellation-Rendition-Europe-Middle-East-and-Africa-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C633&#038;quality=89&#038;ssl=1\" alt data-hero-candidate=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\"  ><figcaption><span>A rendering of O3b mPower, SES&#8217; broadband constellation in medium Earth orbit. <span><span>Credit:<\/span> SES<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div>\n<article id=\"post-514665\">\n<div>\n<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 SES has outlined plans for a more streamlined board of directors, but one of the satellite operator\u2019s biggest shareholders says the changes don\u2019t go far enough amid mounting competition in the space industry.<\/p>\n<p>The Luxembourg-based company said it has decided to reduce its board from 11 to nine members while proposing two new directors with extensive U.S. national security and defense leadership experience:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ellen Lord, former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment of the United States Department of Defense.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>John Shaw, former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Space Force and first Commander of the USSF Space Operations Command and Combined Forces Space Component Command.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These appointments will help SES \u201ceffectively navigate this rapidly changing landscape,\u201d the company said, and will be put to a vote at its next annual shareholder meeting April 3.<\/p>\n<p>SES also kicked off a search for a director with capital markets experience after hedge fund Appaloosa <a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/ses-shareholder-pushes-to-curb-state-control-to-tackle-market-challenges\/\">called for an overhaul of its share capital and board structure<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Appaloosa holds more than 7% of SES\u2019 economic interests and has a similar stake in Intelsat, which SES is acquiring in a $3.1 billion deal.<\/p>\n<p>While SES said it would put Appaloosa\u2019s proposal for a structured program to distribute capital to shareholders to a vote \u2014 despite recommending its rejection \u2014 the operator dismissed other proposals from the hedge fund, such as reducing state control.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe initial steps the SES Board is taking to modernize its structure are long-overdue and only came following shareholder pressure,\u201d Appaloosa said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, much more can, and must, be done \u2014 with a greater sense of urgency than is evident from the Board\u2019s incrementalism.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Appaloosa urged other shareholders to vote in favor of its plan to return excess cash flow to shareholders annually.<\/p>\n<p>SES said it already strikes a healthy balance between returning capital to shareholders and maintaining flexibility for growth investments, warning that Appaloosa\u2019s proposal could jeopardize its investment-grade credit rating.<\/p>\n<p>Luxembourg has been an anchor shareholder since the company\u2019s inception, SES noted, and the government\u2019s special Class B shares cannot be taken away by a vote of other shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn any event, SES considers the Luxembourg Government to be a valuable shareholder and stakeholder in the Company and the Luxembourg Government has on numerous occasions confirmed its strong support for the Company,\u201d SES said.<\/p>\n<p>SES added that the government is unable to appoint more than a third of its total number of board directors, preventing it from dictating or inhibiting the company\u2019s growth strategy.<\/p>\n<p>Appaloosa had also called on SES to remove its entire board and replace it with a smaller number of directors, which SES said would be chaotic and unnecessary.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/author\/jason-rainbow\/\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload width=\"80\" height=\"80\" src=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Jason-Rainbow-150x150.jpg\" alt >\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJason Rainbow writes about satellite telecom, finance and commercial markets for SpaceNews. He has spent more than a decade covering the global space industry as a business journalist. Previously, he was Group Editor-in-Chief for Finance Information Group,&#8230;\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/author\/jason-rainbow\/\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Jason Rainbow\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\t\t<\/main><br \/>\n\t<\/section>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/spacenews.com\/ses-shrinks-board-as-shareholder-calls-for-bigger-changes\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A rendering of O3b mPower, SES&#8217; broadband constellation in medium Earth orbit. Credit: SES TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 SES has outlined plans for a more streamlined board of directors, but one of the satellite operator\u2019s biggest shareholders says the changes don\u2019t go far enough amid mounting competition in the space industry. The Luxembourg-based company said it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":841888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2207,27752],"tags":[6960,21363],"class_list":{"0":"post-841887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-board","8":"category-shrinks","9":"tag-board","10":"tag-shrinks"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}