Intelsat has completed its merger with PanAmSat Holding Corp., creating the world’s largest provider of fixed satellite services.

Intelsat acquired all of the shares of PanAmSat for about $3.2 billion and refinanced PanAmSat debt, bringing the total purchase price to about $6.4 billion.

David McGlade will continue as CEO of Intelsat, the company said Monday in a statement. James Frownfelter, who was president and chief operating officer of PanAmSat, becomes COO of Intelsat. Joseph Wright, formerly CEO of PanAmSat, becomes chairman of the board.

The combined company has 51 satellites, eight teleports and a network of 40,000 miles of fiber.

“As we combine those two fleets, it really is going to provide for maximum operating flexibility, but perhaps more importantly the ability to respond to changing market conditions and provide an unprecedented backup and redundancy that we think will drive our network reliability to greater than 99.999 percent,” Mr. Frownfelter said.

As the two companies are combined, Mr. Frownfelter said, about 400 people, representing between 20 percent and 30 percent of the two companies’ employees, will lose their jobs. Those positions represent redundancies, he said.

“We will provide one-stop shopping that will allow customers to expand their own businesses through international distribution, which is what everyone is looking for these days,” he said.