Investing.com —  shares fell over 2% on Monday after Barclays downgraded the stock to “underweight” from “equal weight” rating and lowered its price target to €7.05 from €7.75. 

The new target implies about 10.7% downside from the stock’s €7.89 closing price on July 1, while Barclays maintained its Neutral view on the European media sector.

Barclays said the C-band catalyst “is not exactly behind us but it is better understood,” while the excitement around the SpaceX IPO is now also behind the market, “even if SES has more or less given back the gains in its shares from that period of market focus on the sector.” From here, the bank said, “we think the SES story flips back to its fundamentals.”

The broker cited three reasons for the downgrade. First, it said significant underlying improvement is required in several areas in 2026 to deliver consensus forecasts, which it called “possible but uncertain.” 

Second, Barclays said it is 5% below 2028 consensus on revenue and 3% below on adjusted EBITDA, driven by “fears around competition in particular.”

Third, the broker said it expects more focus on where Starlink and Amazon LEO satellite constellations can hurt incumbent operators as Starlink “continues to demonstrate strong growth.”

Barclays said 160 megahertz of C-band spectrum will be cleared, with the process required to be completed by 2031, and the incentive framework for satellite operators will be based on the prior C-band process “but not exactly the same.” 

Using the same approach as the previous process, Barclays calculates $3.9 billion, or €3.4 billion, of net proceeds for SES. The bank said the exact cash incentive amounts will be released on July 22.

Barclays said the primary risk to its thesis is if SES’s C-band payment comes in notably higher than its $3.9 billion estimate. “Every €100m extra that SES receives adds c.2% to the value per share for the group that we calculate in our valuation work,” the broker said.

On valuation, Barclays applies a 5.0x EV/EBITDA multiple to 2027 EBITDA, which it said is “at the bottom end of incumbent telcos 2026 trading multiples.” 

The analysts said that on an unlevered free cash flow yield basis, SES trades level with Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone. Combined with its discounted cash flow analysis, this produced the €7.05 price target.

The broker also flagged that 2H26 “requires significant improvement in underlying rates of organic revenue growth in Government, Media and Mobility,” which Barclays said is “achievable, but there are risks.”