DirecTV-TPG Sparks DirecTV-Dish Speculation
AT&T selling a minority stake in DirecTV to TPG (see our report here, news release here) drew speculation about the video business that's being spun off eventually being combined with Dish Network. Meanwhile, AT&T told us it will file satellite…
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license transfer applications with the FCC to assign operations to DirecTV. A Barclays analyst asked during a Thursday conference call if the TPV deal has any provision about how the ownership of the entity would be shared in any future DirecTV-Dish. “There's a lot of different terms and conditions in it and a lot of different scenarios that might be out there, none of which I'm going to talk about,” AT&T CEO John Stankey said: “If something else occurs, we get 70% of ultimately the value,” the stake the telco keeps. Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen thinks a future DirecTV-Dish is “inevitable” (see 2011060043). A Dish spokesperson declined to comment. The transaction “is better than it seems for AT&T, but only if there is a subsequent value-enhancing transaction (like a merger with Dish),” theorized New Street Friday. “We are confident that this transaction was set up as a precursor to a second transaction, presumably a combination with Dish.” The deal foretells “more wheeling and dealing ahead,” likely putting DirecTV’s “popular but costly” NFL Sunday Ticket service "into play," wrote GlobalData senior analyst Tammy Parker.