(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)
