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• If Sirius has to be sold, who will buy?

  Posted Apr 03 2008, 11:45 AM by Douglas McIntyre
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  Filed under: Apple, Comcast, Ford, DirecTV, Verizon, Sirius XM, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Toyota, GM, Clear Channel, Dish Network
  Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money

  When the Justice Department cleared the merger of Sirius with XM Satellite there was anticipation that once the deal got done the shares of both companies would go up. A year ago, the combination was viewed as a dream deal.

  If anything, the shares have dropped. Sirius is below $3 and XM is below $13. The market began to realize that the year wasted on getting government approval was a year the companies need to stay competitive. XM has over $1 billion in debt. Refinancing it in the current market would be nearly impossible. Selling shares would lead to extremely large dilution.  As we recently noted, Goldman Sachs even put Sirius on its "Conviction Sell List" with a price target of $2.25.

  Growth at Sirius has slowed considerably. In the fourth quarter revenue rose only 29% to $250 million. But, for the full year, revenue was up 45%. Subscriber deactivations in the fourth quarter were almost 540,000 compared to 330,000 in the same quarter of 2006. The firm's net loss was $166 million. Long-term debt was almost $1.3 billion.   Read More...

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• AT&T goes after Comcast with digital TV service

  Posted Dec 12 2007, 04:13 AM by Kim Peterson
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  Filed under: Comcast, AT&T, Cablevision, Time Warner Cable, cable TV
  Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money

  

  After years of paying Comcast at least $100 a month for cable and Internet, I can't help but cheer AT&T on these days. The company is going after cable in a big way by aggressively expanding its U-verse digital television service. AT&T said yesterday it wants to have signed up 1 million video customers by the end of next year. And by 2010, the company said, the service will be available to 30 million customers.

  Getting there isn't cheap: AT&T is planning to spend about $5 billion this year and next to deploy U-verse, which could cut into 2008 earnings by as much as 14 cents a share. It wants to up its weekly installs from 10,000 to 40,000 by next year.

  U-verse's TV signal comes over Internet Protocol through broadband, and you don't need a traditional voice line to use it. The service's advantages include fast channel changing, the ability to record four shows at the same time on a DVR, and a picture-in-picture tool that lets you watch one channel and browse another. You can only watch one HD channel at a time, but AT&T said it will change that in the future.   Read More...

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