Does Dish Network Have a Play for T-Mobile?
courtesy of T-Mobile US Inc.It is not news that Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) chairman Charlie Ergen has been chasing after any likely suspect that owns a terrestrial-based wireless company. The satellite pay-TV provider has a master plan to combine…
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It is not news that Dish Network Corp. (NASDAQ: DISH) chairman Charlie Ergen has been chasing after any likely suspect that owns a terrestrial-based wireless company. The satellite pay-TV provider has a master plan to combine high-speed wireless, satellite TV, and high-speed broadband that is missing an essential piece — the high-speed wireless that Ergen tried to acquire with a (low) bid for Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) and might now try to acquire with T-Mobile US Inc. (NYSE: TMUS).
Dish reported second-quarter results Wednesday morning and while revenues rose, earnings didn’t meet estimates. To underscore Dish’s quandary, though, pay-TV subscriber numbers fell 44,000. Broadband subscriptions rose by 36,000 but that was short of a consensus projection of 53,000.
An analyst at Deutsche Bank told Bloomberg:
T-Mobile has been the prize on Dish’s mind since the beginning. If you combine satellite with an LTE platform, you have a very interesting competitive dynamic. You could offer a very interesting wireless video play, and you’d have the ability to have a ubiquitous footprint anywhere in the country.
Just about everyone describes Dish’s plan as interesting — everyone that is, except the company’s potential takeover targets. None seems to want anything to do with Ergen’s big idea.
Dish has amassed a veritable mountain of wireless spectrum and the company has to do something with it pretty soon. The $42 billion figure that was being bandied around as Sprint’s offer for T-Mobile is pretty rich for Dish, but Ergen might be able to convince a couple of bankers that his company’s plan is not only “interesting,” but a winner.
Dish stock is up about 1.8% Wednesday afternoon at $63.29 in a 52-week range of $43.75 to $67.50.
T-Mobile trades now at $31.38, down about 7.5%, in a 52-week range of $22.95 to $35.50.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
