Funny, I do that whenever I trade FOREX. Of course, FOREX is quite exciting...Originally Posted by FUNFUN99
SIRIUS XM SATELLITE RADIO FORUM
Funny, I do that whenever I trade FOREX. Of course, FOREX is quite exciting...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...oUg&refer=home
Sirius XM May Get Financing From Liberty to Avert Bankruptcy
By James Callan and Connie Guglielmo
Feb. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Liberty Media Corp. is working on an agreement to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to Sirius XM Radio Inc. and help the pay-radio company avert bankruptcy, a person familiar with the matter said.
John Malone’s Liberty Media is still negotiating the details of a rescue for Sirius XM, said the person, who declined to be identified because the talks are ongoing. Sirius XM said last week it may be forced to file for bankruptcy as soon as tomorrow if it can’t reach an agreement to refinance debt.
On that day, Sirius XM must repay $175 million in bonds held by Charles Ergen’s EchoStar Corp., a satellite-equipment company. Either Ergen or Malone, who control the two largest U.S. satellite-television companies, would be able to use New York- based Sirius XM to integrate TV and radio services.
Patrick Reilly, a spokesman for Sirius XM, declined to comment. Liberty Media spokeswoman Courtnee Ulrich didn’t immediately return a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
The Financial Times reported today that Liberty Media may offer Sirius XM $250 million in a senior secured loan in a debt- for-equity swap. A decision is expected by tomorrow, the FT said, citing an unidentified person familiar with the discussions.
A group of Sirius XM creditors said today it plans to seek the removal of Chief Executive Mel Karmazin if the company files for bankruptcy instead of making a deal to remain solvent.
“Creditors believe that a precipitous bankruptcy filing will not be in their best interests,” said Edward Weisfelner, a lawyer with Brown Rudnick LLP who’s representing the creditors. “Our group is concerned that management not use the threat of bankruptcy as a negotiating tool,” he said in a telephone interview today.
Convertible Bonds
Sirius XM exchanged about $172.5 million of its convertible bonds due December 2009 for senior notes maturing in June 2011, it said in a statement last week. The amount is almost half of the $400 million in notes the company had maturing at yearend.
The shares rose 3 cents to 10 cents on Feb. 13 in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The stock has plunged 94 percent since Karmazin, 65, completed the merger of Sirius and XM in July. Sirius XM has about $3.25 billion in total debt.
To contact the reporters on this story: James Callan in New York at jcallan2@bloomberg.net; Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 16, 2009 20:55 EST
Gee thanks! I have been sick to my stomach for a week now. Started accumulating in September at 1.59, 1.25, .50, .30, .11, .09, and back to .12. We will see what tomorrow brings. I would gladly settle for dilution at this point. Better than the alternative.
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/20...liberty-media/
Sirius Nears Deal With Liberty Media
FEBRUARY 16, 2009, 7:49 PM
Sirius XM Satellite Radio appeared close to staving off bankruptcy by striking a deal with Liberty Media, the owner of DirecTV, people briefed on the matter said Monday.
The two sides have not finalized an agreement, but any such deal is likely to involve the beleaguered satellite radio operator selling a stake in itself to Liberty, freezing out a takeover bid by Echostar Communications, which owns the Dish Network.
It would be the culmination of a rapidly brewing battle between John Malone, the head of Liberty, and Charles W. Ergen, the head of Echostar. Mr. Ergen had attempted to corner Sirius by buying a large portion of $175 million in Sirius debt that would come due on Tuesday.
Sirius said on Friday that it had struck a debt-exchange deal with some of its bondholders, but that it still faced a potential bankruptcy filing if it could not negotiate waivers or pay off the $175 million due on Tuesday.
Mr. Ergen and Sirius’s chief executive, Mel Karmazin, have had a long-running feud, one that complicated negotiations between the two companies. It was unclear earlier in the talks between the two whether Mr. Ergen would keep Mr. Karmazin on as Sirius’s chief executive, though the two had made some progress over the past week.
But Sirius appeared to clearly prefer a deal with Liberty, Echostar’s biggest rival and a white-knight bidder who would have largely preserved the satellite radio company’s existing structure.
–Andrew Ross Sorkin and Michael J. de la Merced
"I know nothing."
Sgt Schultz, Hogan's Heroes
"I understood not."
Job 42:2,3,6
Thats trading currency right!....I was thinking about trying that!
How is it? Is it easier to get a feel for it compared to stocks?
They have a free trail offer on TV...
I travel a little so I know something about foreign currency..
Any tips or info would be greatly Appreciated...
Thanks Tony
The waiting is the hardest part.........but at least you can listen to your satellite radio.
DealBook Column
Sirius XM’s Fate at Stake in a Radio Cliffhanger
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LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMy SpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalinkBy ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Published: February 16, 2009
Mel Karmazin, the irrepressible chief executive of Sirius XM Radio, worked his phone all last week from his corner office on the 37th floor of the McGraw-Hill building, just above Howard Stern’s studio. “Get John Malone on the line,” he shouted to his assistant. Ten minutes later, he was calling “Charlie” — as in Charles W. Ergen of EchoStar Communications, the owner of Dish Network.
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Between those calls, he was dialing up Roger C. Altman of Evercore Partners, the former deputy secretary of the Treasury, and James B. Lee Jr., the vice chairman of JPMorgan Chase. “We gotta find a way to make this work,” he would say to just about anybody who would listen to him.
Mr. Karmazin, a born salesman, wasn’t just jabbering — he was battling to prevent bankruptcy at Sirius XM, the satellite radio giant he had fought to create by merging Sirius and XM Radio less than a year ago.
Mr. Ergen, his longtime nemesis, had cleverly bought up $175 billion of Sirius XM’s debt, knowing full well that Mr. Karmazin couldn’t afford the payments, so he could turn around and try to take control of the company.
And the due date is today.
On Monday night, Mr. Karmazin was near a deal to pull off the impossible: he had coaxed Mr. Malone of Liberty Media, which owns DirecTV — and who is a fierce rival of Mr. Ergen’s — to be his white knight and agree to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in the company in exchange for several board seats and a minority stake, according to people involved in the negotiations.
Even more extraordinary is that Mr. Malone’s investment, which could end up costing as much as $450 million, or possibly more depending on how you calculate it, is more than the company’s market capitalization — and Mr. Malone isn’t getting control.
If the deal doesn’t hit a last-minute snag, Mr. Karmazin will have managed to save his company — and his job (Mr. Ergen wanted to fire him) — by pitting some of the most hard-nosed negotiators in the business against each other, all while he held what no doubt looked to be a losing hand.
As part of the transaction, Mr. Malone is to pay about $265 million now — which will be used to pay off the $175 million that Sirius XM owes Mr. Ergen today — as well as make a second payment of up to about $200 million in the fall to help pay off about another $400 million that Sirius will owe, these people said.
Mr. Ergen had bought a part of that second piece of debt to act as another tripwire, but with this deal, he will probably lose his opportunity to take over the company. Of course, Mr. Ergen won’t go away empty handed: he most likely will make a handsome profit by having bought up Sirius’s debt on the cheap and being paid off at its face value — by Mr. Malone, no less.
A spokeswoman for Sirius XM declined to comment. Spokesmen for Liberty and EchoStar could not be reached for comment.
What’s less clear is why Mr. Malone or Mr. Ergen want Sirius XM so badly in the first place. There doesn’t appear to be much overlap, in part because the technology is so different. Certain satellites that were part of the XM network could be converted to other uses, like rural broadband or high-definition television, but to do that could be expensive and create a legal quandary.
Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, said that even if the satellites’ uses could be modified, “as a legal matter, we do not believe that either Dish or DirecTV could use the spectrum assets for a mobile video service or a broadband data service,” without a change in service rules by the Federal Communications Commission.
Still, Mr. Malone and Mr. Karmazin are likely to argue that there are synergies. The biggest? Programming. All three companies — Sirius XM, EchoStar and DirecTV — battle for rights to broadcast sports and other entertainment and news.
The heft of DirecTV and Sirius XM could put pressure on fees the next time programming comes up for auction. The two companies can also very likely take advantage of their customer bases to market to each other, creating package deals for both services.
In the end, however, the deal may be more about money than strategy. Mr. Malone, who has never been driven by emotion, may see a good business saddled by a very bad capital structure. It is a story we are likely to see played out over and over again this year.
While Sirius XM is burdened with $3.25 billion in debt, it has about 20 million subscribers who generate a revenue stream of some $2 billion annually. If Sirius XM can solve its debt problem, the company’s value is likely to jump sharply. (One of the great ironies of the merger of Sirius and XM was the expectation that the combined company could borrow money more cheaply.)
Still, Wall Street is likely to be shocked that Mr. Malone is investing in Sirius XM. All last week, the inside line was that he was just being used by Mr. Karmazin as a ploy to help in his negotiations with Mr. Ergen.
“Liberty involvement is more likely an effort by Sirius XM to attract a competing bidder,” Vijay Jayant, an analyst at Barclays Capital, wrote in a report. “We don’t believe the company is fundamentally interested in becoming involved in the satellite radio business.”
Likewise, Thomas Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart, wrote in a note on Thursday, “We believe it is highly doubtful that Liberty makes an investment in or acquires Sirius.”
It was on Thursday, however, that Mr. Malone and Mr. Karmazin secretly agreed to pursue the deal, according to people briefed on the talks. Indeed, despite reports in other news outlets of a near deal between Mr. Ergen and Mr. Karmazin, there was never much of an offer at all — Mr. Karmazin rejected Mr. Ergen’s offer of $500 million to take over the entire company out of hand. For Mr. Karmazin, the options were “Malone or bust,” one person involved said.
It was vintage Mr. Karmazin. “You have to play the hand you’re dealt,” he said in an interview last fall. “Right now, I don’t like my hand. But we’ll play it.”
The latest news on mergers and acquisitions can be found at nytimes.com/dealbook.
Tom Petty knows how to put that into words.The waiting is the hardest part.........but at least you can listen to your satellite radio.
You will have to learn to lose money...Try one of the free trials. We are getting off topic though...
Last edited by Siriusowner; 02-16-2009 at 11:03 PM.
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