interesting interview with malone * link

[sl62]

sl62,

Excellent post. Pretty much my thoughts when I read it yeterday as well. MALONE CHOOSES HIS WORDS FOR A PURPOSE! I feel ever more confident that Malone knows alot more than he speaks of as to future plans as well.

asm..

what's um man? Long time no see. Lotta threads here, easy to not see someone ..hope all is well.

Yeah, Malone is clearly the smartest guy in the room. And he knows how great of a position he's in right now. He trumped Ergen for a reason and not so he and "his good buddy Charlie" can do something together in the future. He would rather attend Charlie's and Dish's fiscal funeral first (pretty good alliteration huh? LOL). As for us, Mel wound up with the deal he needed to have. Not the one he wanted but the one he needed. But as said before what would shareholders rather have (forget about BK cause we already know no one wants that LOL): This deal, and having guys like Malone, Maffei, associations to Direct, et al in our arsenal..or either a bank loan at the same 15% or some other benefactor silent partner investor who gives us nothing but money? I will take Malone and give him 40%. Esp. since we know the 2014 hedge will be dogging this SP in any of the scenarios. I say the Malone deal pays back bigger dividends than we can see just yet.

[sl62]

asm..

what's um man? Long time no see. Lotta threads here, easy to not see someone ..hope all is well.

Yeah, Malone is clearly the smartest guy in the room. And he knows how great of a position he's in right now. He trumped Ergen for a reason and not so he and "his good buddy Charlie" can do something together in the future. He would rather attend Charlie's and Dish's fiscal funeral first (pretty good alliteration huh? LOL). As for us, Mel wound up with the deal he needed to have. Not the one he wanted but the one he needed. But as said before what would shareholders rather have (forget about BK cause we already know no one wants that LOL): This deal, and having guys like Malone, Maffei, associations to Direct, et al in our arsenal..or either a bank loan at the same 15% or some other benefactor silent partner investor who gives us nothing but money? I will take Malone and give him 40%. Esp. since we know the 2014 hedge will be dogging this SP in any of the scenarios. I say the Malone deal pays back bigger dividends than we can see just yet.

asm..

oops meant what's up? Not what's um? LOL

[asm610]

asm..

what's um man? Long time no see. Lotta threads here, easy to not see someone ..hope all is well.

Yeah, Malone is clearly the smartest guy in the room. And he knows how great of a position he's in right now. He trumped Ergen for a reason and not so he and "his good buddy Charlie" can do something together in the future. He would rather attend Charlie's and Dish's fiscal funeral first (pretty good alliteration huh? LOL). As for us, Mel wound up with the deal he needed to have. Not the one he wanted but the one he needed. But as said before what would shareholders rather have (forget about BK cause we already know no one wants that LOL): This deal, and having guys like Malone, Maffei, associations to Direct, et al in our arsenal..or either a bank loan at the same 15% or some other benefactor silent partner investor who gives us nothing but money? I will take Malone and give him 40%. Esp. since we know the 2014 hedge will be dogging this SP in any of the scenarios. I say the Malone deal pays back bigger dividends than we can see just yet.

Totally agree.



I've been a bit scarce due to work ....project is picking up steam, but I have been reading. Also...paying close attention to my bank stocks now that SIRI has pretty much stabilized itself.

[relmor2003]

relmar, I am sorry I have a little trouble believing that article when they say:
"That paid off Sirius’ debt on the very day the company was in danger of defaulting. The Wall Street Journal reported Ergen held $300 million of Sirius’ near-term debt, positioning himself to move for control of Sirius or acquire some of its assets in bankruptcy." I ask you what in here sounds false with 380 million in COH as of the end of the year. Are you going to tell me 380 - 173 = a negitive or not enough.

P.S. As a side note, If you recall as everyone else (to include yourself) was saying wooohooo. I said that the Malone deal sucked. I even had to argue it with YOU.

Exactly. I took more time than you to fully digest the deal, you were helpful with this, yes. I also kneejerk reactioned to it, as happy to avoid bk, but I never felt it was going to happen. More relief to quit worrying about it. They could have used COH, then had months more to find the money to pay the May debt, or a real partnership deal, or force Malone to get reasonable with his offer, and Ergen. I guarantee you it would have worked. I would have been bluffing them against each other, claming third party deals, etc.. I would have had them eating out of my hands if they wanted a piece of this. Or told them go buy my stock on the open market, drive up the price, so I can sell it at a reasonable rate for bonds. Then well talk. Anything MIllion tricks.. Then deal from a position of strength. Listen, well sell assets, and use all our COH to pay May debt too if we have too. Id rather go to court with MLB, an default with them, than allow you Malone or Ergen to steal 40% of our company from us. I will do anything and everything to not only stay out of BK court, but keep this company from taking advantage of our situation.
Heres what I dont understand. If you go to your stockholders, and raise money, they would gladly do this, instead of diluting their own worth. I know I would. Mel didnt due a good job as CEO, or hes a criminal. Im sorry folks, Im only giving two options here.

[sl62]

These reporters just throw this crap out there -- without actually doing some research into what they're saying.

Example: This reporter from Philly.com, suggesting that Ergen could "reconfigure" the XM satellites -- just as he did when he bought the Voom satellite for use with Dish Network... read this:

"Ergen's no stranger to this sort of thing. In 2005, he bought the satellite that had beamed the short-lived Voom HD TV service and repurposed the bird to deliver more Dish TV channels - including, for a spell, some Voom HD programming."

"If he can grab the Sirius XM satellites, which include a couple (XM-3 and XM-4) that are in very good positions to blanket the 48 contiguous states plus populous chunks of Canada, he could reconfigure the system to carry more local high-definition TV channels to Dish customers."

http://www.philly.com/philly/enterta.../39654972.html

So what? What the reporter didn't tell you is that Ergen didn't "repurpose" the bird -- they just renamed it from Rainbow-1 to Echostar-12, and began using it for Dish Network offerings. That satellite was designed for use in the C-Band (4-8GHz) and Ku-Band (12-18GHz)... Dish is using it exclusively in the Ku-Band now -- using the LICENSES that Voom owned and were transferred to Dish when they took them over.

The XM satellites are ALL designed for use in the S-Band (2-4GHz), more specifically the lower end of the S-Band. Their transmitting antenna's and their transponders are all designed for that portion of the S-Band. There is currently no DBS allocation in the S-band either. DBS is allocated to the Ku-Band at around 17GHz (but I believe being moved down to 12GHz); Dish picked up the Zoom license that were also in the Ku-Band; Dish also made big headlines when it bought up a batch of 700MHz licenses in the UHF band.

So even if Ergen got the XM satellites -- they can't be "repurposed" for broadcast in other locations of the spectrum, such as the UHF band like Jimmy Schaeffler suggested. Shame on him for not doing better research.

The "spectrum suited for that" (satellite to mobile phone video service, which the author brought up) is referring to the batch of licenses that Dish picked up in the 700MHz band. That is obviously nowhere near the S-Band, where XM's satellites are. So that "spectrum suited for that" won't be able to use those satellites.

The best they could do is to lobby to change the XM licenses to a DBS license; but then they'd have to have that portion of the S-band be re-allocated to allow it in the first place... and as I noted before, it is likely that Congress or the FCC would more likely reauction the license -- before just changing the allocation to something else. After all, auctions is how the FCC makes money.

In the end?

All this for just 12.5MHz of bandwidth? The Dish and DTV 17GHz licenses cover 500MHz! 12.5MHz is peanuts, comparatively... especially since the XM signal is split into thirds and the throughput of the satellites is just 3.4Mb/s.

It kills me when I read reporters throwing this crap around making it sound so easy and that it could be done - when they have no idea of what they're talking about!



-------------

Homer..

Very informative post. Thnx. And 888's if you posted this before then same to you...

[sl62]

Exactly. I took more time than you to fully digest the deal, you were helpful with this, yes. I also kneejerk reactioned to it, as happy to avoid bk, but I never felt it was going to happen. More relief to quit worrying about it. They could have used COH, then had months more to find the money to pay the May debt, or a real partnership deal, or force Malone to get reasonable with his offer, and Ergen. I guarantee you it would have worked. I would have been bluffing them against each other, claming third party deals, etc.. I would have had them eating out of my hands if they wanted a piece of this. Or told them go buy my stock on the open market, drive up the price, so I can sell it at a reasonable rate for bonds. Then well talk. Anything MIllion tricks.. Then deal from a position of strength. Listen, well sell assets, and use all our COH to pay May debt too if we have too. Id rather go to court with MLB, an default with them, than allow you Malone or Ergen to steal 40% of our company from us. I will do anything and everything to not only stay out of BK court, but keep this company from taking advantage of our situation.
Heres what I dont understand. If you go to your stockholders, and raise money, they would gladly do this, instead of diluting their own worth. I know I would. Mel didnt due a good job as CEO, or hes a criminal. Im sorry folks, Im only giving two options here.

Rel,

I don't disagree we all would have liked to see a resolution to this..not on Feb 16th, but more like Nov 16th when the SP was still around .30 -.40. There are just too many questions we don't know the answers to why Mel waited. And we'll probably never know unless we tie Mel up and waterboard him LOL.. but chances are good it was a handshake complicity to let bondholders and banks get some easy action (down and back up) in return for extending facilities...just my guess...and of course could never be proven..

But given those realities, I'm less unhappy having Malone and Liberty now as part of the team. At least it helps give Satrad some cred because someone like him invested in it and says publically he believes in it. Much different than if he had no stake and just said he believes...yes everyone knows he's making a good buck but just like Buffett going into Golden Slacks..it's the cred that counts...

[relmor2003]

Rel,

I don't disagree we all would have liked to see a resolution to this..not on Feb 16th, but more like Nov 16th when the SP was still around .30 -.40. There are just too many questions we don't know the answers to why Mel waited. And we'll probably never know unless we tie Mel up and waterboard him LOL.. but chances are good it was a handshake complicity to let bondholders and banks get some easy action (down and back up) in return for extending facilities...just my guess...and of course could never be proven..

But given those realities, I'm less unhappy having Malone and Liberty now as part of the team. At least it helps give Satrad some cred because someone like him invested in it and says publically he believes in it. Much different than if he had no stake and just said he believes...yes everyone knows he's making a good buck but just like Buffett going into Golden Slacks..it's the cred that counts...

I agree mostly as well. I like who loaned us the money, I just dont like what we had to give up just to get high interest loans, and 100 million cash. Im sorry, but any competent CEO would have done better, with the revenue they have, im sorry. Not many companies can boast of such revenue. And none trading under .20 cents. This SP is a complete joke, and Im going to enjoy the long laborous ride up now. As sl62 stated, the 2014 short will provide a ceiling for how high we will go, but the floor is in now. And its going to be pretty much whatever is trading at that day, minus a few cents, tops. No big dumps coming now. Too many retailers sold off, and will never come back.

[Koop]

Siri has 8 Bil shares of stock, correct? ( I assume that is the common).
How does it work that Mallone can turn 12.5 Mil (preferred i believe) into 40% ownership of the company.
Does that mean that more shares would need to be issued...does the preferred transfer to some larger number of commons...or have I just flat missed something?
koop

[relmor2003]

Siri has 8 Bil shares of stock, correct? ( I assume that is the common).
How does it work that Mallone can turn 12.5 Mil (preferred i believe) into 40% ownership of the company.
Does that mean that more shares would need to be issued...does the preferred transfer to some larger number of commons...or have I just flat missed something?
koop

No, they have the shares they need to give to Malone. And with filing that shelf the other day, I believe they can issue all shares now, at a moments notice.

[sl62]

I agree mostly as well. I like who loaned us the money, I just dont like what we had to give up just to get high interest loans, and 100 million cash. Im sorry, but any competent CEO would have done better, with the revenue they have, im sorry. Not many companies can boast of such revenue. And none trading under .20 cents. This SP is a complete joke, and Im going to enjoy the long laborous ride up now. As sl62 stated, the 2014 short will provide a ceiling for how high we will go, but the floor is in now. And its going to be pretty much whatever is trading at that day, minus a few cents, tops. No big dumps coming now. Too many retailers sold off, and will never come back.

very much agree. Personally given our beliefs, i've been starting to stategize a bit more for the near future. I totaly believe this pig will hit a buck again this year before r/s. That's my target. It is going to be tight trading this sucker on the way back up though with that hedge in place, never really knowing where the gains will be made. Soon, I'm going to leave about 40K in this sucker and stay focused elsewhere in my portfolio on swing trading. Then whenever this SP hits its marks in the next 90 days or so, I will evaluate according to my target. Day to day on this sucker might start being a bit of a waste of time (and money) from here. We're already almost 3 months into '09. I'd like to start seeing some better returns as tillions of new money is about to start puring into the market. SIRI will just be too slow going I think and we don't want to miss the boat here on other stuff..