Earnings call transcript: EchoStar Q3 2025 reveals strategic shifts amid earnings miss

EchoStar Corporation reported a significant earnings miss for the third quarter of 2025, with an EPS of -44.37 compared to the forecast of -1.21. Revenue also fell short at 3.61 billion USD against an expected 3.73 billion USD. Despite these results, the company’s stock showed a pre-market increase of 0.98%, reflecting investor interest in strategic developments. According to InvestingPro data, EchoStar has not been profitable over the last twelve months, with a Basic EPS of -$1.12.

Key Takeaways

• EchoStar’s significant spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX.
• Launch of EchoStar Capital for strategic investments.
• Partnership with SpaceX for global connectivity.
• Missed EPS and revenue forecasts by a wide margin.

Company Performance

EchoStar’s performance in Q3 2025 was marked by a substantial earnings miss, with both EPS and revenue falling short of expectations. However, the company announced major strategic moves, including spectrum sales and a new partnership with SpaceX, positioning itself for future growth despite current financial challenges.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 3.61 billion USD, down from the forecast of 3.73 billion USD.
• Earnings per share: -44.37, missing the forecast of -1.21.
• Estimated tax and liability range: 7 to 10 billion USD.

Earnings vs. Forecast

EchoStar’s actual EPS of -44.37 was a significant miss compared to the forecast of -1.21, resulting in a 3,566.94% surprise. Revenue also fell short by 3.22%, indicating challenges in meeting market expectations.

Market Reaction

Despite the earnings miss, EchoStar’s stock rose by 0.98% in pre-market trading, reaching 73.03 USD. This positive movement suggests that investors are optimistic about the company’s strategic initiatives and potential long-term growth, despite current financial results.

Outlook & Guidance

EchoStar’s forward guidance indicates a continued focus on strategic capital deployment and potential mergers and acquisitions in aerospace, space technologies, and other sectors. The company is also exploring spectrum monetization strategies to enhance future revenue streams.

Executive Commentary

Charlie Ergen, CEO, emphasized a shift towards long-term strategic thinking, stating, "We can get back to that principle now of thinking long-term." Hamid Akhavan, CEO of EchoStar Capital, highlighted the importance of space infrastructure, noting, "Space is becoming the next infrastructure in the world."

Risks and Challenges

• Significant financial misses could impact investor confidence.
• Competitive pressures in the wireless market.
• High estimated tax and liability range.
• Challenges in executing strategic initiatives amid market volatility.

Q&A

Analysts inquired about the valuation of the SpaceX transaction, tax optimization strategies, and the future of EchoStar’s wireless and satellite businesses. Discussions also touched on the potential for a DirecTV merger, indicating strategic interest in expanding market reach.

Full transcript - EchoStar Corporation (SATS) Q3 2025:

Joe, Conference Operator: Greetings and welcome to the EchoStar Corporation Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Thank you, Joe. Welcome, everyone, to EchoStar’s Third Quarter 2025 Earnings call. We will begin with opening remarks from Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO of EchoStar Capital, followed by Charlie Ergen, CEO and Chairman of EchoStar. We are also joined by other members of the leadership team. We request that any participant producing a report not identify other participants or their firms in such reports. We also do not allow audio recording, which we ask that you respect. All statements we make during this call, other than statements of historical fact, constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause our actual results to be materially different from historical results and from any future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

For a list of those factors and risks, please refer to our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, filed on February 27, 2025, and our subsequent filings made with the SEC. This information and supplemental materials related to today’s call will be posted on our Investor Relations website. All cautionary statements we make during the call should be understood as being applicable to any forward-looking statements we make wherever they appear. You should carefully consider the risks described in our reports and should not place any undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. We assume no responsibility for updating any forward-looking statements. We refer to OIBDA and free cash flow during this call.

The comparable gap measure and a reconciliation for OIBDA is presented in our earnings release and in the case of free cash flow in our Form 10-Q as filed with the SEC today. With that, I’ll turn it over to Hamid.

Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO of EchoStar Capital, Hughes Network Systems Leader, EchoStar: Thank you, Dean. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I would like to start by addressing the change in our call format this morning in that we have Charlie Ergen, our founder and Chairman, here with us today. Charlie and I will provide some updates on our business, our recent transactions, and discuss some changes within our organization. As you know, we recently announced the signing of a series of major transactions, one with AT&T at the end of August and another with SpaceX in September, valued at approximately $23 billion and $19 billion, respectively. These transactions were instrumental in resolving the FCC’s review of the company’s spectrum utilization. Further, just this morning, we announced an amended definitive agreement with SpaceX, which builds upon the agreement the companies entered into in September, to sell EchoStar’s unpaired AWS-3 spectrum license for approximately $2.6 billion in SpaceX stock.

Once these transactions close, we will have the capital runway necessary to continue to expand our existing operations as well as the freedom to pursue new opportunities. This focus on new growth avenues significantly broadens the aperture of our business going forward. In light of this increase in the scope of responsibilities for the company, Charlie and I have decided to create a new division focused primarily on capital management and M&A. Going forward, I will lead this new division as the CEO of EchoStar Capital. I will also continue to manage Hughes Network Systems. Charlie will take on the position of EchoStar CEO in addition to his role as Chairman. Managing our video and wireless operating business units, these changes are effective immediately.

Building up on a 45-year operating heritage across communications, media, and technology infrastructure, EchoStar Capital will be a great steward of our resources, a vision and thesis-driven and strategic investment-oriented operation with a global perspective and a proven track record of value creation. Our institutional knowledge and experience uniquely positions us in the marketplace to create superior and lasting value through innovation, execution, and integration, allowing us to invest in operating businesses who can expand our capabilities and market reach and focus on initiatives that generate sustainable shareholder value. I’m incredibly excited about this opportunity and ability to usher in this new phase for EchoStar. I will now hand off to Charlie for a few comments.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: It is good to be back on the call in a funny kind of way, but I just have a couple of comments. You know my style is just to take questions because I never know what is on your mind. Hamid and I will do that and team. One housekeeping issue is we agree with the president in the sense that we think corporations should only have to file twice a year instead of quarterly, because it just takes by the time you finish the quarter, you are almost starting to work on the next one. It takes an inordinate amount of time. Since that has not changed, obviously, we will still continue to file quarterly. We may from time to time not do quarterly conference calls like this, because we will try to stay focused on our business.

We will do a call next quarter for year-end, and obviously, we’ll have a lot of things changing between now and then. After that, we may be sporadic in terms of how we do these calls. So with that, let’s take questions.

Joe, Conference Operator: Thank you.

Speaker 4: All right. Are we ready?

Joe, Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in question to you. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your headset before pressing the star keys. The first question comes from the line of John Hodulik with UBS. Please proceed.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Maybe first on EchoStar Capital. Charlie, could you talk about how it’ll be capitalized? Will all the proceeds from the spectrum sales go into EchoStar Capital? Or just anything you could tell us about those proceeds would be great. Just what areas do you expect to invest in? Lastly, if I could, you still have the AWS-3 spectrum. Any update you can give us on the potential sale of that block? Just how do you think of relative value for the paired versus the unpaired transaction we just saw? Thanks.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. Thanks, John. I’m going to take the second part of your question. I’m going to have, I think, Hamid the better person to answer the EchoStar Capital question. On AWS-3, the big picture is the sale to SpaceX is timely. I think it’s a bit because we still own the paired AWS-3, and we sold some spectrum to AT&T. The unpaired was, for us, somewhat orphaned spectrum. In SpaceX’s hands, it gives them a lot of flexibility of combining uplink and downlink. It gives them a lot of flexibility for where spectrum might come in the future. For them, obviously, it went for a lower price. They’re going to be able to make, obviously, much better use of it than we can in today’s terms. We’re pleased to get SpaceX stock because we think that’s the.

Hamid will talk about this maybe later, but that’s obviously kind of the first place EchoStar Capital is going with the equity interest in SpaceX. We can talk more about why we think that’s an excellent investment. The paired spectrum we still have. Obviously, we would transact if there was a meaningful transaction. AWS-3 is quite a bit more valuable for us, and I think other people, I think the other carriers look at it the same way. When you look at spectrum, value comes really from three sources. One is, is it in phones? And so is it in devices? That was one of the biggest problems we had in building our own network was getting some of our spectrum in devices. Our AWS-3 paired spectrum has always been in devices for as long as I can remember. I doubt there’s.

There may not be any phones in the U.S. that have AWS-3 spectrum in it. It is already valuable in that sense because you do not have a bunch of extra cost on devices. The second thing is, who uses AWS-3? The three major carriers all use AWS-3 spectrum. It is a very wide band, 70 by 90 megahertz. It is a very wide band, and all three of them use it. In most cases, they are adjacent to our spectrum. That brings up the third thing, which is, where does it cost you to deploy the spectrum? In most cases, it is my understanding that the radios that are out there today all can take our AWS-3 spectrum without having to climb the tower and put new radios in for the most part. It is a very valuable spectrum in that sense.

We’ll get a sense of that, obviously, as the auction comes up next year for some of the spectrum from a smaller swath of spectrum. We’re very comfortable with that spectrum, and we’ll work with the FCC in terms of the auction rules and how that might all take place. I think it’s very, I think it’s the most valuable piece of spectrum we have. We’ll see where that goes. Hamid?

Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO of EchoStar Capital, Hughes Network Systems Leader, EchoStar: Yeah. Thank you. I’ll answer the question regarding the proceeds from the sales. Our intention is that all of that would be within the EchoStar Capital. EchoStar Capital will. I believe our shareholders would be remiss if we didn’t take advantage of 45 years of our institutional heritage and thesis-driven innovation and execution in the broad fields that EchoStar has been involved in to maximize the value that they can get for that capital that comes into the company. I can’t see too many companies that have the strategic understanding and the breadth that EchoStar brings to the table across telco, space, aero, defense, and all the fields that the portfolio families of EchoStar have been leading and involved in. Now, obviously, we always will be great stewards of capital and we’ll maximize the use of the capital.

If distribution of capital is necessary, we’ll do that in an optimized way to our shareholders as necessary. The roadmap is not 100% laid out at the moment. Depending on how we see the market and opportunities that come to us, we’ll try to take advantage of every opportunity in the best way. As I said, I can’t imagine too many companies out there with the breadth and knowledge that EchoStar has gathered over the past 45 years. That’s our plan at the moment. Obviously, as time goes on, we will be more specific about how and where we deploy that capital or any sort of distribution that could be decided in the future. To start, we need to get all of that in place. The money is not here yet, so we have time to.

Organize ourselves around how we would maximize the use of that capital.

One more follow-up, if I can. Just, Charlie, any update on negotiations with the tower companies? What happens to the entity, the DISH Network that has the deals with the towers? Will that entity sort of stay in place?

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Obviously, we had some unprecedented kind of curveball thrown at us when the FCC informed us that they were going to investigate and take the spectrum. Obviously, we believe that’s a force majeure event. We are happy to work with all our vendors. Obviously, we’re the biggest company that got affected by that. We also have other vendors and people we’ve worked with for a long time that are affected by that. We’ll work with them to the extent that they want to work with us to try to resolve those issues. Unfortunately, one company has already commenced litigation. That kind of sours some of the ability to talk to people because once things go into litigation, it’s lawyers talking to lawyers, and it’s not business people talking to business people. That’s a bit unfortunate. The.

Network is obviously an independent company when we did it. It’s still an independent company. It will obviously handle this through that entity. It’ll handle all these negotiations through that entity. We’ll see where that shakes out. We hope that everything can, other than the current litigation, we hope that those things can be resolved. We’re open to have those discussions.

Great. Thank you both.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Brent Penter with Raymond James. Please proceed.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. A couple of follow-ups on some of John’s questions. You clearly are excited about the SpaceX stake that’s now getting bigger. As you bring in some of this net cash, how do you think about that as an additional area to deploy capital? As SpaceX raises additional capital, do you have rights in terms of maintaining or potentially growing your stake? Just help us think about that SpaceX stake and where you might put your capital.

Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO of EchoStar Capital, Hughes Network Systems Leader, EchoStar: First of all, we are very excited about having that equity on our balance sheet. We consider that our first investment in EchoStar Capital. We believe that equity has tremendous growth opportunities just by the fact that SpaceX has such a significant lead in the technology within the space. The space is becoming the next infrastructure in the world as launch capabilities and costs have become economical. Also, global security and communication has become more important in the age of AI. We see that as being a strategic holding. We obviously will keep that on our balance sheet. Excited about having the additional $2.6 billion that joins it. We certainly look to have additional investments of similar strategic nature. As I mentioned, there’s a number of areas, a number of industries that we have a heritage in.

A deep thesis about understanding of those trends within the industry. We’ll be very careful about investments that are synergistic with our thesis and understanding. Very excited about that opportunity. I can’t comment about us getting more SpaceX equity or some other transaction. As I said, this is the first day of our announcement about how we’re going to go forward. We will be diversified. We’ll certainly have. We’ll be great stewards of capital. As time goes on, we’ll be more specific about the transactions. Good news is that we still have a few more months before we even have the capital on our balance sheet. We do have the time to do a proper job of planning and communicating with you where we’re heading.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. I’m just going to follow up a little bit with this. This will give you some insight, I think, to the way Hamid and EchoStar will think about EchoStar Capital will think about things. SpaceX, in terms of we’re excited about that as an investment. What things we look at, first thing we look at is management. SpaceX management, we’ve gotten to work and gotten to know over the last 10 years because we’ve launched on them. They really have been the best vendor that we’ve worked with in space and solve very complex problems for us, move very quickly. We’ve worked a lot closer, obviously, as we’ve gone through these deals. They don’t brag about themselves. They’re pretty understated, but they are doing.

Based on my experience, they are doing incredible things with space, whether it be launching or satellites or services. The second thing you look at is, obviously, is this a place that over the next decades there’s going to be business? As Hamid said, space is going to continue to grow. Particularly you see governments with Golden Dome and security. It is also the consumer. The ability to do broadband from satellite and also connected devices, those two things fit together. There is a lot of synergy between those two things in one company. The third thing is, who is going to be the winners and losers? We look at other industries. I do not know who the winner in AI is going to be. One thing I am sure of, there will be winners and there will be losers.

I just don’t know which ones will be winners and which ones will be losers. In space, I think it’s pretty obvious that while there’s some companies doing some very interesting and creative things, SpaceX is going to be the leader for the foreseeable future because they have the most efficient launch capability and satellite manufacturing capability, in my opinion, that I’ve seen. When you add all that together, and then, I think, when we built for 17 years this ability to technically be able to go satellite device and regulatory-wise in the spectrum and all those kind of things, that’s now in SpaceX hands or will be in SpaceX hands. We know that worldwide capability in the same frequency. We know that we would have built a good system, but they’re going to build even a greater system in a faster period of time.

That’s going to grow their business by. Probably that business by itself is going to be a huge part of where they grow that’s not probably in people’s calculations of their value today. That gives you a feel of how we think about things.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: Okay. Great. Appreciate all the detail there. Then a follow-up on the tower side. Since you all feel that you’re relieved of those tower payments, what would actually cause you to stop making your payments to the tower companies? Just any update on the timing of when we might have a resolution as we think about litigation and negotiations with them?

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. I just don’t think we would get into that. I mean, the only thing I would say is litigation is not positive.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: Okay. Thanks, guys.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of David Bardon with New Street Research. Please proceed.

Hey, guys. Thanks so much for taking the questions. Appreciate it. I guess my first question, Charlie, there were not many numbers in the press release today about the SpaceX AWS-3 unpaired deal. One of those numbers was that you pay or you invested at a $212 price. Could you, for the public-side investors, tell us what information you have? What information can you share to support what apparently is your belief that $212 is an appropriate valuation for this SpaceX company today? I guess my second question is maybe for Hamid or maybe you also, Charlie. The taxes on the asset sales. What the taxes would be would be helpful, kind of given all the different moving parts on depreciation and capitalized interest. Also, there is a theory out there that if your frustration of purpose argument.

Works with respect to the towers, that you have access to the 1033. Stepped-up basis on these spectrum sales and that the taxes could be far less than maybe the market imagines. I wonder if you could kind of opine on that. Thank you so much.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. In terms of valuation of SpaceX, I would just say that I think I’m almost repeating myself, that we don’t have a pretty good feel of what they’re doing and where they are. I think they just publicly announced 8 million customers in broadband. I think you could overlay their growth in broadband and then overlay a device growth and look along that same curve. You would see a much greater valuation than $400 million. Again, as I said, the management team is excellent and understated, in my opinion, in terms of what they do. They have a pretty big moat around their business. You have 90% of the launch business. They’ve launched the new generation of satellites, which is at least twice as big as anything else out there, maybe even bigger. They’ve launched it 12 times.

They’ve caught it, returned it back. Other people, unfortunately, are struggling to get their first ones up. I just think their lead is actually growing. Their biggest competitor is China, probably. China, I do not know if this has even successfully landed rockets. Their lead is big and growing. If you had to pick a winner in an industry, from my opinion, I could be wrong on this, of course. While they’ll face competition and there are creative things going on in their space, they’re the most obvious of any industry that I know of. They’re the most kind of obvious winner, right, in terms of every other industry. You just have a lot of people that you just do not know who ultimately ends up on top. Of course, SpaceX still has challenges to get through.

There are still risks there. That is the way we think about it. That is the way we will think about things with EchoStar Capital. Who has those characteristics. On the tax side of it, we are well aware of 1033. Maybe I turn it over to Paul or Hamid. Do you want to take that?

Hamid Akhavan, President and CEO of EchoStar Capital, Hughes Network Systems Leader, EchoStar: I’ll make a comment on that. Then we’ll go with Paul. First of all, I absolutely endorse Charlie’s statements on SpaceX. First, we want to mention that we are not insiders to SpaceX. We have no inside knowledge of SpaceX. Charlie and my views are 100% aligned and common on how great SpaceX is. That’s just our personal views and based on what we have seen. You should rely on SpaceX’s statements on what they see about the valuation of the business. We are excited about having that equity. Just as Charlie said, we see all the trends in space being good and SpaceX being a leader in there. Naturally, we think that this is a good place for us to hold.

Now, on taxes, we have not broken out the taxes separately from our other liabilities in the towers and others that we just referenced. As we have previously said, we’ve not sharpened our numbers since the last time we spoke in Paris. We still believe that somewhere in the range of $7 billion-$10 billion is the combination of our unoptimized taxes and unoptimized value of our liabilities. So that range is what we essentially think we have. Now, can 1033 provide additional benefit and reduce that number? I’ll ask Paul. He might have some knowledge in terms of how applicable that may be. Paul, maybe you can comment on that.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. Thanks, Hamid. There is a lot of puts and takes there. Obviously, the AT&T transaction is going to close in 2026. The SpaceX transaction is expected to close in 2027. We have NOLs that play into the mix. We are going to do everything we possibly can to mitigate the exposure. We are working on that currently. The range that Hamid gave that includes both decommissioning costs and tax of $7 billion-$10 billion is still currently our best estimate.

Just to follow up real quick, the 1033 is not in the 7-10, but it’s a possibility. Is it contingent on kind of how these litigations go, and whether you’re successful in making this frustration of purpose argument, which would allow you to kind of move up the basis and shift assets to another class?

I’m just. It’s been used. It’s been used, I think, some of the 600 megahertz broadcasters when they put a spectrum in auction. I think they use 1033 in some cases successfully. We’re aware of it. Obviously, there seem to be a lot of similarities between how it’s been used in the past. Everything is specific, and we’ll look at that as part of our strategy. I don’t think it’s contingent. Yeah, I was just to add to what Charlie said. It’s not contingent on what happened with the litigation. Those are totally independent concepts.

Got it. All right. Thank you so much, guys. Really appreciate it.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Walter Pacik with Lightshed. Please proceed.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Walt, we can hear you if you are there.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: Operator, may we take this question?

Can you hear me now?

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Oh, yeah. We can hear you. Yes, yes, Walt.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: You didn’t buy us a commercial?

I know. I hate when I say it that way. On Satscap, I assume all the cash from all the spectrum sales is going into there. Does that keep it away from DBS shareholders and any OpEx obligations, meaning like the tower companies? Hamid, you kind of danced around returning the capital, saying if it’s necessary to do it. I do not know when it’s ever required that you distribute cash. Can you give us a little bit more color on kind of at what point you say, "Hey, we’ve used our 45 years of experience. We’ve looked around. There’s not enough interesting stuff. And we’re going to send cash to the shareholders"?

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Let me take that piece first. First of all, comments of dancing around. First of all, Walt, it’s a little early for me to give you an exact formula or recipe or roadmap for how we’re going to utilize the cash. As you would expect, as any great company that has institutional knowledge and heritage within certain verticals, their best ability, the best option usually is to use that knowledge to deploy the capital because they’re strategic. They’re the insiders to an industry that a financial investor from outside will never, never get that insight, right? We would be remiss not to take advantage of all that institutional knowledge and return the capital to shareholders that would now have to deploy that capital in a way that they would not take advantage of this ability.

I think the shareholders that have been with us, and we have great ones around the table right here, Charlie himself, would certainly want us to maximize the value. Now, there’s a limit to that. If I had $2 trillion, I couldn’t use all of it. How much institutional knowledge I have, I probably couldn’t use enough because the industry just doesn’t have that ability or just the opportunity is not there because the market is not good or the industries that we’re focused on are out of favor or just don’t have enough great opportunities for us. We obviously, as great stewards of capital, figured out how we would distribute that capital back to the shareholders in a tax-optimized way. We are not novices in this. We are not walking into this without a full understanding of the options ahead.

The only thing I can say is that we have deep heritage. This company has proven it can return value by the fact that you have seen for the past year. The thesis that Charlie had put in place decades ago has come to play. There is much more we could do there. If at the end of the day, we have excess capital beyond what we can properly use, strategically use, we certainly will not sit on it in an unoptimized way. Very, very early stage for me to make any further detail on that. It would be premature for me to say that. Just trust us that we would be great stewards of capital. We manage it like our own capital as it is our own capital. Primarily.

Is this protected from DBSD and the tower companies? Just really a follow-up on that. Can you at least say that you’re not going to build a network or something of that ilk? These are really more passive investments that you’re using your years of expertise to look at?

Yeah. Just Charlie. I think maybe Paul will jump in there. Obviously, our capital structure is well known. They are obviously separate independent entities for specialized purposes. One thing that is clear for the AT&T transaction is we will be paying to DBS. The DBS will receive about $2.8 billion for tranche B, which is the C-band spectrum that we are selling to. That is collateral there. The one thing you can say is that there will be capital moving into DBS, at least $2.8 billion.

Just on the types of investments, I assume these are not operational. These are all passive, like, "Hey, we’re investing in great new things that maybe SpaceX gives us access to"?

We certainly do not intend to be purely passive investors. We do not intend to do that because obviously we do not want to be, and it is not in the best interest of our shareholders to become a fully act regulated investment company. We will have to manage this according to those rules, which means we will make a combination of active and passive investments. Even when we make a passive investment, it will be strategic for us. It will be a thesis-driven investment. It will not be just, we are not wealth managers. We do not view ourselves as just broadly deploying capital in the marketplace. We would only focus on areas where we understand. In some cases, that investment cannot be a controlled investment or significant influence investment, as is the case for SpaceX. The valuation of that company is very high.

We would not be able to provide enough, and we would not have access to enough equity to make that one a controlled or significant influence as defined by the 40 Act. We will balance that with other investments that we will have control and we will have operating influence to the point that we manage around any sort of regulation that would be in front of us. We will be much more precise in all of this as time goes on. Great questions for today. We are aware of how we need to manage that. We are not going to become a passive investment company. We like to rely on our heritage of operations. As I mentioned, we think we can combine our understanding of technology, our ability to execute, and our heritage of innovation will give us a very good platform to create great value.

Various Analysts, Questioners, UBS, Raymond James, New Street Research, Lightshed, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Quilty Space: I would just say.

Thank you.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Realize we own and run three different companies today, and Hughes and DISH and Lang and Boost. Clearly, obviously from a Boost perspective, we think that’s a business that should grow. Obviously, the video business is somewhat challenged as it has been for a decade. We still see those businesses lasting for a long time. Yep. We obviously have, both Charlie and I have extensive operating experience, not just domestically, but also globally. We have a very broad range and scope of places and domains and verticals that we can deploy the capital effectively.

Got it. Thank you.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi. Please proceed.

Thanks. And good morning. Charlie, in your brief opening comments, you described the reasons that you’re going to do an earnings call for the fourth quarter with its end of the year. There’s immediate changes that could be coming between now and then. We’re just curious if you could give us a little bit of a preview or roadmap of the range of potential changes that can continue to happen for EchoStar between now and your fourth quarter earnings call. Secondly, just to follow up on kind of moving beyond being a wireless network operator. As you’re selling the spectrum, at what point can you unplug the radios so that you’re no longer meeting the minimum use requirements, but you’re able to start saving money from doing that? Is it when these transactions close?

Is it now that you’ve announced a few transactions and you have maybe some more possibly that you have to kind of figure things out for? What’s the formula where you could just start unplugging?

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah. On the second part of that, we work with. We’ll work with. We really need to work with the regulators on that. Those discussions are ongoing. It wouldn’t be appropriate to discuss that. Obviously, we’ll have more cover on that early next year. I’m going to give you a general answer because it’s a very good question about what might happen between now and February. You asked a good question. I think we pivot two pivots in our company. One is the pivot to be a capital-rich company, maybe more asset-light. The other pivot is within EchoStar, where I’m going to be involved in the day-to-day operations now, is to pivot to long-term thinking. We had to think about things short-term because we were putting all our capital into the build-out of our network. And we.

Had lots of requirements regulatory to do that. We did that. We had to think about things in the rest of our businesses in a short-term way. That historically is not the way we think as a company. One of our principles is to think long-term. We can get back to that principle now. I think you’ll see that by making, by thinking about things long-term, we maybe will take a little bit of a step backward short-term because when you go from short-term to long-term, it’s a little bit of a step backward. I think you’ll see that. In a general sort of way, we’ll be more competitive in terms of what we’re doing in some of our businesses. We think about things in terms of long-term cash.

We do not really think about it for EBITDA and those kind of metrics. We think about deploying capital where we get a return. We think about, strategically, particularly in wireless, where you are one of, really five counting cable, you are one of five companies that are basically doing the same thing. How do we do some things differently? How do we look like a little bit different animal than what everybody else is doing? We are kind of going, we were building the highway, and we were Uber, and we were building the highway. Now we get to be Uber, and we just rent the highway. For that, that puts us in a little bit different situation. I will say that I do not think people truly understand the efficiency of what we call a hybrid M&O.

Where we rent the radios, but we have the core, basically the brain, the cloud, and how the system operates. We can have a differentiated experience for our customers. We do get a lot of data from what we are doing with customers. We can make that experience better and automate that experience. Yet we do not have the burden of building and maintaining the towers, which normally would not be a problem. Our scale is so small that that was a challenge for us. I do not know that I totally answered your question, but from a big picture, we are going to be thinking a little bit longer term in the core business.

Thanks very much.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Thank you. Charlie, it’s good to have you back on the call. Appreciate your time. I was curious if you could talk about any opportunity to sort of wrap the remaining AWS-3 spectrum that hasn’t been sold with the upcoming auction where you are, as you know, on the hook for any shortfall with a multi-billion dollar liability. Is there any opportunity with the FCC to sort of combine those two to try to monetize the spectrum and also kind of de-risk the auction from an EchoStar perspective? We’d love any thoughts if you have any to share.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Yeah, Ben, it’s a good question. I’m not going to answer it, but I’ll talk around the edges of it. I mean, obviously, this FCC put us in a difficult situation. We went kind of through the five stages of grief, denial, anger, and depression. Now we’re at acceptance, of course. That’s the first thing from our perspective. The second thing is we really hadn’t talked with the FCC folks for a couple of years. Once we started having conversations, we’ve gotten on the same path. This FCC has quite the vision. We didn’t totally agree with it, but they want spectrum to get used more quickly and for the benefit of more Americans. It’s hard to argue with that vision. Once we’ve started communicating, now we’re in lockstep really with where the FCC wants to go.

It is our job to now work with them and make sure that all our assets get put to the best use for the American public. Part of that indirectly goes to your question, as you look at the AWS-3 auction coming up. There potentially are ways to make that the most efficient option. We are in the process of those discussions with the FCC. They will obviously, others will have input into that as well. We at least have a sounding board to say, how can we share your vision, this FCC, to get this spectrum in use as quickly as possible and in the hands of people that will compete with it? One of the great things about the AT&T deal we did is because of our hybrid M&O deal with AT&T, we get to actually use the spectrum that we sold them. You.

Can think about those things in a different way. This FCC is going to, they have a vision of where they want to go. They’re going to be the most influential FCC that I’ve worked with ever. It’s our job to help them get there, where they want to go. That’s what we’re going to do.

That’s helpful. Just a follow-up on the Boost business now that you’re running it. The history of MVNOs, these are typically not great businesses. I know this is a hybrid MVNO. You sound excited about the opportunity. It’s got revenue scale, at least to a degree, but it’s still burning a lot of cash flow. I know you’re going to start decommissioning. You’ve started decommissioning the network. Just can you talk about, I guess, the strategic vision for the business? I don’t know if there’s any help you can give us on the path to getting this thing to cash flow positive now that you’ve switched models.

Yeah. The strategy is simple. We have to do two things. Right? If you look at any company that’s the fourth or fifth player, this is what they have to do to be successful. You have to do two things. You have to use technology in a way to be different. You have to do things that the other guys aren’t doing or they could do, but they won’t do. It doesn’t make sense for them to do it. On the technology side, we’ve already made our first strategic move, which is an agreement with SpaceX for our Boost customers to have worldwide connectivity to the handset, both for voice, text, and broadband. I’m sure others will follow suit with SpaceX.

Carriers now are, many carriers have some choice as to who they might sign up with. There is a wide variety of where those carriers are going. We are highly confident that we have aligned with which the company is going to have the best technology. We can do some things different than others. We have already started that. That is two years away, probably, realistically. We have already started. How we do things differently, I think, is for our team to come up. We will officially start like Monday. We will start having strategic sessions of how we can think about how we do some things differently. I do not think it is a good path. I do not think we can be successful if we look just like the other guys. They just have too much scale.

Any help on just getting the business to profitability? I do not know how much the expense base goes away when you fully convert. Anything like that?

Those of you who have been with us for 30 years as a public company know that. We’d like to run things for cash, and we don’t like losing money. I don’t have a—we’ll have a lot more on that. I think that as you move to long-term thinking, that becomes an easier path. Short-term is always difficult. That’s just the cards that we had to play short-term. Now we get to play a bit better. We’re better as a company when we’re thinking long-term. We’re definitely going to be—and again, I think the nature of our hybrid M&O, it’s underestimated by the market. People try to say it’s an M&O or this or that. It’s a different animal. The AT&T network that we ride on is a great network.

With our spectrum, they’re already putting our C-Band to use, is my understanding, some of it. That network’s only going to get better. I just think we could be more competitive. We certainly will be more competitive than we have been in the past.

Paul, Financial Executive, EchoStar: Yeah. Adding to that, one of the things that hopefully shortens the path to profitability is the reduction of the fixed cost of the business, which you can imagine is drastic. Certainly from a network side, you needed much greater scale to reach that profitability when to retire the fixed cost. Obviously, not having that shortens the horizons tremendously. Second, having an MVNO deal with AT&T kind of makes our cost more valuable on a usage basis. Again, another way to create operating leverage for us as the more we sell. I mean, obviously, we do not need to have a large scale in order to rescribe. All the strategic thing that Charlie’s talking about should get us to profitability in a much shorter horizon than you would have originally modeled. We are not going to give you that today.

Obviously, as time goes on, that information might become more available to you. Be excited about. We’re really excited about our ability to develop that business as the most scaled MVNO, hybrid MVNO in the marketplace with the benefit of having access to space and having the great coverage of AT&T, which is using our spectrum now, will be the best coverage in our view. Thank you. Next question, operative, please.

Joe, Conference Operator: The next question comes from the line of Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed.

Speaker 0: Hi, good morning. I had a few, if I could. First, as a follow-up on the tax side, I was wondering if you could confirm that there will be a tax benefit from the impairment charge that you’re taking today. Is that benefit excluded from the $7 billion-$10 billion range that you cited? Secondly, just a follow-up on AWS-3 and the auction. Does the timing of the auction matter as it relates to you selling the paired AWS-3 licenses? Is it optimal to wait? Is it better to do it first? Just wondering how you’re thinking about that. Also, the converts. I was wondering if ultimately you plan to settle those in cash or stock. Lastly, we’d just love to hear your latest thoughts, Charlie, on a potential DBS merger with DirecTV at this point in time. Thank you.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Oh, you want to take the first?

Paul, Financial Executive, EchoStar: Yeah. This is Paul. Good question there. I’ll take the tax question. As it relates to the impairment charge, some of the items have already been deducted. For instance, we take bonus depreciation on the network or amortize the FCC spectrum. So we won’t get a benefit of that. But the other costs, we will. And to answer your question, is that included in the $7 billion-$10 billion range? Yes, that is.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: This, Charlie, in terms of AWS-3 timing and so forth, again, I wish I could give you more information, but we’re really working with the FCC to make that. A, to make sure this is the most successful auction possible and that spectrum gets used as quickly as possible. Again, it’s a pretty valuable spectrum, I’d say that. As far as the converts, we’ll make a decision at the time that we can call those converts as to whether we call them or not. If so, is it cash or stock or some combination of that? It’d just be premature to speculate on that today. Hamid, maybe I’ll throw it over to you on DirecTV.

Paul, Financial Executive, EchoStar: Yeah. Certainly at EchoStar Capital, we look at every opportunity for value creation through inorganic transactions. The DISH and DirecTV always have seemed like a natural combination, and it’s been an in-house combination. Our track record of making that work has not been great. It is hard to predict how it might go. Certainly, we will always look at any opportunity to take advantage of assets we have in-house with a transaction. I can’t make any prediction right now about how that might go. That item has always been on our radar. Charlie has been very vocal about the fact that the combination of the two companies would create a significant and tremendous amount of value.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Operator, we’ll have time for one more question.

Joe, Conference Operator: The last question will come from the line of Chris Quilty with Quilty Space. Please proceed.

Thanks. I was hoping you could possibly give a long-term update on the plans for one of those operating businesses, Hughes. You’ve obviously got downturns in the VSAT business and the consumer broadband. It looks like IFC is growing. Are there thoughts on either growing that business organically or non-organically, and what markets are you most focused on?

Paul, Financial Executive, EchoStar: Okay, Chris, thank you. Regarding Hughes, as you know, we have been on a multi-year journey at Hughes at least three years now. To transition that business more towards an enterprise business from a consumer business. Purely from the realization and understanding that the consumer connectivity to satellite is now highly competitive given SpaceX’s offerings and perhaps in the future other Leo offerings such as Kuiper. We recognized years ago that we could not have a Leo system on a broadband side to compete with those. We started shifting to our enterprise. Our expectation is that as early as next year, we’ll be crossing over the 50% mark on enterprise revenue. We have had significant progress in an area which we had almost no share on three years ago.

We are only one of a couple of companies in the world that are growing on the arrow side. There is some progress being made in there. We’re happy with that. We still have a long journey to make Hughes much larger scale in the enterprise. We are on Gartner’s Leader Quadrant as one of the few, in fact, in this industry. In their industry, in its industry, there is none other than Hughes on Gartner’s Leader Quadrant. It shows the ability of Hughes to serve global brands across the world. We’ll try to monetize and maximize that if there’s any sort of M&A opportunity. As I mentioned on the list of areas, domains where we will be looking for additional M&A, you saw three or four of those actually fall within Hughes’s purview. That’s arrow, space. We talked about enterprise services.

We talked about defense and domestic manufacturing, which I think all of those are areas where we have green shoots and a good understanding of the trends. If there’s at EchoStar Capital, if you find opportunities in any of those domains that will enhance Hughes’s position, we’ll take advantage of that.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: That concludes our call. Thanks for joining.

Paul, Financial Executive, EchoStar: Thanks, everybody.

Dean Manson, Chief Legal Officer, EchoStar: Thank you.

Joe, Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.