Shares In Dish Network Parent EchoStar Surge On Reports Of Yet Another Round Of Merger Talks With DirecTV

Shares in Dish Network parent EchoStar climbed 7% in early trading Monday in the wake of reports that the satellite TV division is once again discussing a merger with DirecTV.

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The companies have long coveted a combination, though a formal proposal was scuttled by the FCC in 2002. A lot has happened in the intervening two decades and the companies are experiencing major stress due to cord-cutting.

If the two were to pull off a merger, it would create the largest pay-TV provider in the U.S., with a combined 19 million subscribers.

EchoStar stock has been weighed down of late by various financial challenges faced by the company, which has been trying to stand up a wireless competitor to AT&T and Verizon. AT&T owns 70% of DirecTV, with private equity firm TPG controlling the rest.

Bloomberg and Reuters last Friday reported the two entities were in early discussions, though indications are that the talks are at a preliminary stage. DirecTV on Saturday reached a carriage renewal with Disney after a 13-day outage, with the impasse highlighting its challenges as a pure-play video provider. Unlike broadband purveyors with TV services, DirecTV and Dish can only offer video.

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A report from Citi Research noted that after multiple attempts at a combination over the years, “there is still a high degree of industrial logic” to a merger. A deal would make sense as the companies “try to navigate the secular erosion of linear video subscriptions and improve scale to offer a streaming alternative.”

Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson sees a much higher likelihood of a deal passing regulatory muster today, compared with a previous media era. Even if it were to prevail, though, the analyst has reservations. Synergies, for example, are limited, he argued in a note to clients Monday. “We are skeptical about pick-and-choose synergies in programming agreements,” for example, Moffett wrote. “A merger here has been anticipated for decades; protections for affiliates are therefore likely already anticipated in carriage agreements.”

Both companies have been in a state of flux over the past few years as they adjust to dramatic changes in the marketplace. AT&T, which acquired DirecTV for $48.5 billion ($67 billion including debt) in 2015, spun it off into a privately held entity in 2021. That move came just months before the telecom giant got rid of WarnerMedia via a separate spinoff and merger with Discovery, capping an unsuccessful run after the $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner in 2018. The two mega-deals cost AT&T tens of billions of dollars.

EchoStar, meanwhile, merged with Dish last January but has faced hefty debt repayments, with speculation continuing to swirl about its financial condition. Its shares touched $27 during Monday trading, a new 52-week high after months of sluggish movement in the stock.

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