E* settles $240M insurance claim for malfunctioning sat

[NightRyder]

Paying for Rainbow 1 just got a lot easier

http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuo...=mtfh16381_2005-03-09_11-54-52_wen6718_newsml

NightRyder

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Yup they get paid 40 million dollars to take the VOOM sat and uplink.

Not bad.

 

[Hall]

Heh, and everyone thinks Echostar and Charlie are stupid.....

 

[gpflepsen]

With Charles Dolan trying every trick in the book to keep Voom, could he somehow derail the proposes sale of Voom's satellite and uplink to E*?

 

[NightRyder]

With Charles Dolan trying every trick in the book to keep Voom, could he somehow derail the proposes sale of Voom's satellite and uplink to E*?

Anyones guess but he has already been warned by the CVC board not to endanger the deal with E*.


NightRyder

 

[Bear]

With Charles Dolan trying every trick in the book to keep Voom, could he somehow derail the proposes sale of Voom's satellite and uplink to E*?

Possible, but he would probably open CVC and himself up to a tremendous number of minority shareholder lawsuits (not to mention a nice break-up fee I'm sure Charlie Ergen included in the sales agreement). In fact, given the recent board manuever, I would seriously consider dropping CVC's policy if I were carrying its O&D insurance, opening up CVC to even greater potential liabilities.

Think of these numbers: Voom is burning ~$55mm/month in cash. Dolan Sr. is now on the hook for "excess operating costs" which means he can keep it going for a while, but the big hang up is the financing. Few banks are going to loan him the money outright, so he will ultimately need to sell CVC to fund Voom. Personally, I'm seeing an 80 year old man that is desperate to keep both his wife and his mistress, rather than choose one over the other.

Later,
Bill

 

[rocatman]

For clarification, I believe the insurance settlement is for the Echostar-4 satellite that is barely keeping three TP frequencies at 157 W alive for licensing purposes.

 

[PILMAN]

is that the 105 that's been having problems?

 

[NightRyder]

is that the 105 that's been having problems?

No. The 105 satellite is AMC-2 Owned by SES AMERICOM, E* just leases space on it. AMC-2 will eventually be replaced by AMC-15 (also owned by SES AMERICOM) which was launched in Jan.


NightRyder

 

[TuxCoder]

And as rocatman included, E-4 is at 157 W (over by HI & AK), not 105.