During Intelsat’s investment call with analysts its CFO Mike McDonnell explained that the satellite operator expected to pay down some $475 million this financial year, an improvement of around $75 million over previous expectations.

McDonnell aid that the rise was related to overall improvements in the operator’s EBITDA numbers. “We have had very strong margins for the year part of that is due to mix, part of that is due to the fact that our collection experience has been very positive thus far and it’s beginning to feel like the struggles that we had particularly in Africa last year around collections are now seemingly behind us.  It’s really just a function of the better EBITDA as well as the very good cash management and working capital management that we have been able to have that really drives the reason for the increase in the estimated debt pay down.”

However, Dave McGlade, Intelsat’s president & CEO, said that the company’s knowledge of the US government’s cut-backs on military capacity demands was still vague. “We are still in a position where we do not have a great amount of insight to what’s happening, we are still seeing the pressures of sequestration, smaller amount of revenue declines relating to Afghanistan but we are still in a position where we are seeing either the cancellations or the consolidation of capacity and some pricing pressures affecting our business.”

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