Profits for Luxembourg satellite company SES drop due to U.S. budget cuts and shutdown
According to its third quarter report, the profits of Luxembourg satellite company SES were impacted negatively because of the budget cuts of the Trump administration, and were then further impacted because of the extended government shutdown.
Revenue over the first nine months of this year rose 20% to €1.75 billion while losses mounted to €55 million so far in 2025. Part of the problem was the Trump administration reassessment of spending that had been decided last year, including the delay of contract renewals and decisions on new awards, Chief Executive Officer Adel Al-Saleh said. Large contracts have also been delayed by the longest congressional budget standoff in US history, now in its sixth week, he said. “We’re experiencing timing delays in some contract awards due to the continuing resolution and subsequent government shutdown,” Al-Saleh said on a conference call with stock analysts.
The company remains in the black, and it expects to make up these losses from other customers. It is also in the process of completing its purchase of the satellite company Intelsat, which has also impacted its profits.
The article notes one interesting aspect of this Luxembourg company, that reflects the unique approach to tax dollars by that nation’s government: “Luxembourg taxpayers own one-sixth of SES shares, but wield a third of the voting power after underwriting its creation four decades ago.” The government doesn’t simply spend its tax revenue, like most governments. It treats that revenue as investment capital, and uses it to make money for the benefit of its citizens.
If only more governments would take this approach!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
According to its third quarter report, the profits of Luxembourg satellite company SES were impacted negatively because of the budget cuts of the Trump administration, and were then further impacted because of the extended government shutdown.
Revenue over the first nine months of this year rose 20% to €1.75 billion while losses mounted to €55 million so far in 2025. Part of the problem was the Trump administration reassessment of spending that had been decided last year, including the delay of contract renewals and decisions on new awards, Chief Executive Officer Adel Al-Saleh said. Large contracts have also been delayed by the longest congressional budget standoff in US history, now in its sixth week, he said. “We’re experiencing timing delays in some contract awards due to the continuing resolution and subsequent government shutdown,” Al-Saleh said on a conference call with stock analysts.
The company remains in the black, and it expects to make up these losses from other customers. It is also in the process of completing its purchase of the satellite company Intelsat, which has also impacted its profits.
The article notes one interesting aspect of this Luxembourg company, that reflects the unique approach to tax dollars by that nation’s government: “Luxembourg taxpayers own one-sixth of SES shares, but wield a third of the voting power after underwriting its creation four decades ago.” The government doesn’t simply spend its tax revenue, like most governments. It treats that revenue as investment capital, and uses it to make money for the benefit of its citizens.
If only more governments would take this approach!
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
They pay goodly taxes–get goodly benies—but they have a work ethic. The Swedes, kept things open during Covid, bless them—but I think some social Gretas in California hurt them:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv11hpspk
After that screed was published–they opened their doors and–you know the rest.
Luxembourg IS old money personified…with a small population that allows them to get away with novel ideas perhaps unworkable elsewhere…
People get far too concerned with -ists and -isms.
Take a Shellfare state with a handful of people with all the oil money.
Distribute everything within communist style—they’re still rich. Pure capitalism? The same.
Mediterranean Monarchies don’t usually have purges these days–that’s Islam’s specialty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932019_Saudi_Arabian_purge
https://adst.org/2015/12/brunei-the-richest-little-country-youve-never-heard-of/
The poor krauts paid for their two invasions with one of their own from Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his harem not long ago
What a freak….Maha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n76IKFlhJWo
Baja?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiEMPy4P9nA
”’Luxembourg taxpayers own one-sixth of SES shares, but wield a third of the voting power after underwriting its creation four decades ago.’ The government doesn’t simply spend its tax revenue, like most governments. It treats that revenue as investment capital, and uses it to make money for the benefit of its citizens.
If only more governments would take this approach!”
Wait! What? You **want** the government to own the means of production and to control that means out of all proportion of its ownership stake? You **want** the government to spend taxpayer money to create government-owned competitors to private companies, to put those private companies out of business or to buy them up to create a government-owned monopoly? You **want** the government to use its power and money to distort the market for the benefit of the government?
Wow! You should move back to New York. Those government-owned grocery stores sound right up your alley.
mkent: Heh. Your point is quite valid. My point here was simply that Luxembourg’s government acts as an investor advisor for its citizens, and is responsible for getting a good return on the dollar. If it does not, it goes the way of all bad advisors and is replaced.
I’d much rather all governments were small and stayed out of as much of everything as possible, but if they must get involved, Luxembourg’s approach is far better than what we have in the states.
Even though I totally agree, this approach carries great risks. It likely would fail in a large country like the U.S. It works in Luxembourg because that country is so small.
Well…. Sweden opened it’s gates before the Wutang Flu hit… For better or worse… But why is your government still in stasis when your leader is master of the art of the deal? And I’m guessing everyone here is losing their poop over the new New York major, ( although he seems like a reasonable, secular guy ).
Nr.1 Son has moved out, and Nr.1 daughter is 18 in a matter of weeks… ( We were arguing about my subsidized daycare rates what seems like a few months ago… Seriously, where did the years go? )
When the last of my chickens has fled the nest I’m selling up here in Sweden and getting myself a little property in the backwoods of Greece or Portugal… I’m happy to have given my kids a great education in a nice land… But they long to spread their wings also… They are optimistic and want to travel the world… I am ageing and cranky and want to drop out and see out my days in sunshine and with fine white wine.
The whole world has gone mad…. See you in the forest somewhere warm!
Trumpcare?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/scott-mcclallen/2025/11/08/trump-u-n2666159
Lee S,
The thing about deals is that they’re only possible when both sides actually want a deal. Trump’s deal philosophy was developed in a milieu in which all interested parties were primarily motivated by money. People with non-monetary primary motivations – Vladimir Putin, Nicholas Maduro and the Democratic Party’s Congressional delegation – can be much tougher nuts to crack.
When verbal persuasion is ineffective, sometimes the only real alternative is to punch or shoot your opposite number. We seem to be nearly at that point with Maduro. Perhaps Putin as well. Ukraine has been doing a pretty good job of de-industrializing Russia, but Tomahawk missiles would speed up the process. Trump may well be on the verge of deciding that helping the Ukes to end the war by militarily defeating Russia as quickly as possible is the best way to end the killing – analogous to Truman’s decision to use the A-bomb against the Japanese, but with conventional weapons. We shall see.
Despite a significant contingent of elected Dems being alright with political violence, Trump won’t actually have the Democrats in Congress slaughtered – for better or worse.
The recent vogue of socialism among urban white lefties I think will prove to be a transient social contagion like Black Lives Matter was and “trans kids” is turning out to be.
Mamdani may not succeed in utterly destroying NYC during the next four years, but he seems certain to render it far less dominant in terms of all variants of the finance industry than it has been to this point. J.P. Morgan-Chase, for example, already has 60% of its payroll working in Dallas. Such declines in municipal fortunes often work a bit like what Hemingway said about bankruptcy – that it happens a little at a time, then all at once.
The NYC super-rich have long since taken steps to become only part-time New Yorkers to avoid the worst of state and local exactions. The next tier or two of the lesser rich will now follow suit if they have not already done so. That will leave mainly the actual middle class and the small businessmen of NYC to shoulder the costs of all the “free” stuff Mamdani has promised his credulous political base. But even those remaining productives will flee if sufficiently “incentivized.” It’s going to be an interesting – and likely frequently entertaining – next few years for people of my general political persuasion. I hope I last long enough to see it run to completion.
You’re picking what seems a good time to depart Sweden for warmer climes. The process of Sweden reversing its incautious influx of grenade-throwing criminal Muslims is likely to prove both protracted and messy. Definitely a good thing to avoid.
I don’t make it a point to stay minutely informed on such matters but my sense is that both Greece and Portugal suffer from rather less Islamization than do, say, Sweden and Italy or even France. All of Western Europe, with the partial exception of France, has terminal demographics that will see nearly all of the native nationalities dwindle to insignificance by century’s end. Old crocks such as ourselves won’t last anywhere near long enough for that to be an issue, of course. I hope it doesn’t prove to be an issue for your progeny either – or theirs, if such there be.
In the interim, snow-free winters are a readily understandable aspiration. I moved to California from Michigan a bit over a half-century ago with that as a close number two to better job opportunities as reasons. It is said that nations in their late decadence periods can be very nice places to be if one has sufficient resources. Good luck to you.
Lookie here
https://www.wbrc.com/2025/11/10/trump-floats-2000-tariff-rebate-checks-most-americans-social-media-post/
Wow…let’s see if Stephen Moore red-baits him….
I need a rebate…I took a big financial hit taking care of elderly parents (now dead). Even put medicine of theirs on my cards.
I knew very few men of means with any morality about them.
My Dad’s friends who were also deacons complimented him at his funeral. Home repair folks always seemed to get to him when I was away.
“He couldn’t believe anyone would hurt him” they told me as he was lowered into the ground as my Mom screamed.
I was under no such illusion. Sorry Dad.
Dick Eagleson,
“The NYC super-rich have long since taken steps to become only part-time New Yorkers to avoid the worst of state and local exactions. The next tier or two of the lesser rich will now follow suit if they have not already done so.”
The word I’ve heard is that as far north as Boston real estate is selling like hot cakes on a cold day, above asking price.