EchoStar secures funding
to cover GM bridge loan

The money will pay off a bridge loan EchoStar secured with Hughes-owner General Motors as part of its $26bn (£17.9bn) takeover of its larger rival, the Hughes-owned DirecTV.

It will be added to the $2.75bn funding EchoStar has already received from Deutsche Bank, bringing the total amount of cash involved in the deal to $5.5bn (£3.9bn).

GM agreed to the loan after it rejected the terms of financing from UBS Warburg. The investment bank is understood to have inserted a clause into the terms that would have allowed it to walk away from the funding at any time.

However, EchoStar's takeover of DirecTV is by no means a done deal. The merger is expected to be subject to a 12-month investigation into whether the creation of a satellite monopoly in the US is anti-competitive.

If the deal is given regulatory clearance, the resulting company will be one of the biggest pay-TV companies in the world with 16.7m subscribers.

If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand

Republic, join the debate in the Forum here.

This article was first published on brandrepublic.com