AT&T-EchoStar: Real Buyout Talks Or Wishful Analyst Thinking?
By Joseph Weisenthal - Thu 27 Sep 2007 02:20 PM PST
Shares of EchoStar Communications (NSDQ: DISH) jumped today on the renewal of rumors that AT&T (NYSE: T) may be eying the company. Stoking the speculation: a research note from Oppenheimer analyst Thomas Eagan calling for such a deal was picked up by a number of outlets, including TheStreet.com. Eagan believes that AT&T’s U-Verse rollout is already proving to be a failure and that the company needs to take a different approach to offering video.
If the two companies are talking, it comes at an interesting time for EchoStar, which earlier this week announced plans to buy Sling Media and a possible split into two companies. It’s not clear how any such deal would affect that plan—although AT&T arguably could acquire just the DISH pay-tv business leaving the possible tech company for EchoStar Chairman and CEO Charlie Ergen,
As for AT&T, it’s been talking up the success of U-Verse. At the recent Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference, company exec Ralph de la Vega said U-Verse now had 100,000 subscribes, double where it was in June, and that growth looked very strong going forward.
Posted in: Companies, AT&T, Media, Satellite, TV, Cable & Telecom, VC+M&A
