Ferdinand Kayser appointed President and CEO of SES ASTRA

SES ASTRA, the SES GLOBAL company that operates Europe's leading ASTRA satellite system, has appointed Ferdinand Kayser President and CEO. He will start his new assignment at the beginning of January 2002. As a member of the Executive Committee of SES GLOBAL he will report directly to Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES GLOBAL.

Ferdinand Kayser joins SES ASTRA from Premiere World, the digital Pay-TV bouquet of Germany's Kirch Gruppe, where since 1997, he was Managing Director at Premiere Medien GmbH & Co. KG and in early 2001 was appointed Managing Director at Kirch Pay Co. Holding and Premiere Medien GmbH & Co, responsible for Strategic Planning, Business Development, Marketing and Sales, Media Regulation, Corporate Communications, the Legal Department and Human Resources.

Ferdinand Kayser started his successful career in the audiovisual media sector in 1984 as Assistant to the General Manager of Coronet S.A., the precursor project to SES ASTRA . In 1985 he joined CLT, today Europe's largest commercial broadcaster, where he held a number of executive positions including Senior Vice President in charge of German TV and radio activities (1989-1991), Managing Director in charge of the launch of RTL 2 (1993), and Executive Vice President and Member of the Management Board responsible for all CLT TV activities (1993-1996). In this position Ferdinand Kayser was also a Member of the Board of Directors of RTL Television and RTL 2 (Germany), RTL TVi (Belgium), RTL 4 and RTL 5 (Netherlands), M6 and RTL 9 (France) as well as Channel 5 (UK). He also assumed operational responsibility for the launch of Super RTL (Germany), RTL 7 (Poland) and Club RTL (Hungary).

Romain Bausch, President and CEO of SES GLOBAL, comments: "Ferd brings extensive knowledge of the audiovisual sector to SES ASTRA. His experience and proven management skills will be very beneficial to SES ASTRA's continuing push to grow its business in the traditional broadcasting sector as well as in new broadband applications."

Ferdinand Kayser, a Luxembourg citizen aged 43, holds a Master of Economics from the University of Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne, and has concluded specialised university studies in Media Law and Management of Electronic Media.

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