Dish Network raises $1.25bn in new debt
May 11, 2021
By Chris Forrester
Charlie Ergen’s DTH operation Dish Network intends on raising $1.25 billion in fresh debt by means of new senior notes. The cash will be raised via Dish DBS Corp, a subsidiary company.
Dish will use the cash to refund some existing debt and general corporate purposes.
A week ago, Dish reported quarterly earnings of 99c/share and beating consensus expectations (which were of 83c per share) and well ahead of last year’s 13c/share. Over the past four quarter-year periods Dish has exceeded consensus earnings expectations.
On April 29th Dish reported quarterly revenues of $4.5 billion (and well ahead of the $3.22 billion a year ago). However, Dish’s core DBS business saw a fall in subscriber numbers of some 230,000 during the quarter, although this was seen as an improvement on the 2020 position when it lost 413,000 in the matching quarter-year. It finished the quarter with 8.69 million pay-TV subs and 2.367 million Sling TV subscribers.