Finance
Satellite firm SES taps aerospace veteran as new finance chief
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 6, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on June 6, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
SES appoints aerospace veteran Elisabeth Pataki as finance chief amid a $3.1 billion Intelsat acquisition, challenging SpaceX's Starlink.
(Reuters) -SES has appointed Elisabeth Pataki, a veteran of the aerospace and defence industry, as its new finance chief, the European satellite company said on Friday.
Pataki is currently the chief financial officer of L3Harris unit Aerojet Rocketdyne. She will fill the same role at SES from June 16, succeeding Sandeep Jalan.
Pataki has completed several successful M&A finance integrations, SES's chief executive Adel Al-Saleh said in a statement.
The company, which had more than $5 billion in total debt as of last year, is in the process of acquiring Intelsat for $3.1 billion, in one of the largest deals of the decade in the sector in a bid to challenge Elon Musk's Space X-owned Starlink.
European satellite operators are facing mounting pressure as Starlink expansion disrupts traditional business models, threatening their financial stability.
SES's five-year credit default swap (CDS) spreads stood at 235 basis points as of Thursday, after reaching all-time highs earlier this year.
CDS are derivatives that reflect default risk. Higher spreads indicate greater perceived likelihood by investors that a company will fail to meet its debt obligations.
SES said in April it had secured the entire financing of the Intelsat deal, which is set to gain approval from European antitrust regulators.
($1 = 0.8746 euros)
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro in Gdansk, editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak)
Elisabeth Pataki, a veteran of the aerospace and defense industry, has been appointed as SES's new finance chief.
SES is in the process of acquiring Intelsat for $3.1 billion, which is one of the largest deals in the sector this decade.
SES has more than $5 billion in total debt and is experiencing pressure from the expansion of Starlink, which threatens traditional business models.
SES's five-year credit default swap spreads stood at 235 basis points, indicating a greater perceived likelihood by investors that the company may fail to meet its debt obligations.
Elisabeth Pataki will assume her role as finance chief at SES starting June 16.
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