Satellite TV giant DirecTV called off its deal with Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar to acquire rival Dish TV and other assets.
Satellite TV giant DirecTV called off its deal with Charlie Ergen’s EchoStar to acquire rival Dish TV and other assets.
The deal would have created one of the largest pay TV distributors in the country with a combined 20 million subscribers. As part of the deal, DirecTV was set to pay EchoStar $1 for the pay TV buisness called Dish DBS, which included Dish and Sling, as well as the assumption of about $9.75 billion of Dish’s debt.
In addition, Dish bondholders had to agree to exchange their debt for new debt in the merged company at a discounted rate, taking a haircut of roughly $1.57 billion on the debt.
