EVERY year, billions of dollars of debt is raised by satellite operators to finance the purchase of new satellites. And this makes financial sense with debt a capitally efficient approach to fund large investments able to provide a steady cash flow over an extended period. For project based investments, operators will typically put up 30% of the project cost with the remaining 70% being financed by banks. More debt can be justified for replacement satellites – with customers and hence cashflow already secured – while more equity would be needed for ventures where there is higher risk and less appetite from debt holders to underwrite that risk.