Dish Bids $32 Billion for Hughes
By Monica Hogan -- Multichannel News, 8/6/2001 1:00:00 PM
EchoStar Communications Corp. late Sunday made an unsolicited $32 billion bid to the board of General Motors Corp. to merge with Hughes Electronics Corp. The transaction would be tax-free, and leave Hughes shareholders with a 66 percent stake in the combined company.
In a letter to the GM board sent Sunday, EchoStar chairman Charlie Ergen wrote, 'We are confident that your shareholders will be supportive of our proposal and enthusiastic about the extraordinary potential of this combination.'
At last week's Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association trade show in Nashville, Ergen ducked questions about whether he planned to go forward with a take-over attempt of DirecTV.
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch has been in negotiations for months to merge Hughes with the SkyGlobal Networks division.
Last Thursday, DirecTV CEO Eddy Hartenstein said News Corp. was the only company that Hughes was in negotiations with, although he acknowledged that Ergen had had preliminary talks with people at DirecTV, Hughes and GM.
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