Comments on: Does Dish Have The Antidote?

By: charlie

charlie — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:27:45 +0000

looking at the numbers:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=TIVO

It looks as if insiders only have about 5%. 75% in institutional hands, but a lot of mutual funds/pension funds that could be expected to sell at a certain price.

Interesting point: this poison pill has killed Tivo investors. I am starting to think management is more interested in extracting cash than making their investors rich. I don’t understand how they can lose money. Their technology isn’t very sophisticated and those boxes can’t cost much.

c11 would void the contempt fines, no?

By: Davis

Davis — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:13:41 +0000

Thanks pfriend, it good to learn something new everyday, I had no idea this kind of bias was in the data. If multiple dealers were involved a single transaction it could be counted even higher?

@Charlie You are right and large shareholders would be more reluctant to sell then someone who didn’t have to report it, but there are still a lot of shares that one could get their hands on. I’m not sure if it’s 50%, but just in case EchoStar does decide to try, at least they know I’m watching. Not sure about the idea of Dish putting themselves into bankruptcy, but I’m open to considering any possibility.

By: charlie

charlie — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:02:06 +0000

doesn’t tivo still have a number of strategic investors? Between them and insiders, I’m not sure 50% of the shares are being traded.

This strategy is somewhat analogous to what Porsche did to VW.

here’s another: sell puts on a number of tivo shares (say 8%). Massive puts. Realize Tivo stock will go up as a result of the judgement. Then put echostar into c11. Tivo shares will go down, dump the puts, cash in, pay the debt, and get out of c11.

By: pfriend

pfriend — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:26:14 +0000

Remember that on Nasdaq shares traded are double counted. Every buy counts as a share of volume and every sell also counts as a share of volumne.

By: Davis

Davis — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:56:04 +0000

Nothing wrong with dreaming big Dale That’s exactly the situation that Dish would find themselves in if they made an offer for TiVo, but didn’t have the cash to pay for the poison. It’s part of why something like would be so dangerous.

By: Dale Dietrich

Dale Dietrich — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:33:36 +0000

What about the possibility of TiVo buying a hobbled Dish? If the poison pill is effective and Dish’s coffers run dry, this seems like a possible scenario.

By: Davis

Davis — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:50:59 +0000

I’ve got to say that I’m still scratching my head a bit after the 13D deadline was missed. It’s starting to make me second guess some of my assumptions. Maybe TiVo isn’t playing hardball with their negotiations.

I wish they’d talk publicly about the issue, but they’ve always been pretty quiet on the subject. I know that some shareholders would prefer a fat check, but I believe TiVo is better off foregoing licensing to Dish and then raising prices on the other providers. If they do play nice, I’m not sure that their negotiating position will be as powerful as it could. It also makes me wonder if Dish isn’t in as desperate as I thought. If it’s only a question of the number of zeros, Dish will end up getting out of this fine. I’ll need to mull this over more and reconsider it as a possibility.

It also makes me wonder who was behind all the volume? Are they institutions in it for the long run or are they in it for a quick trade at the end of a very long battle. There’s only been three times where TiVo’s shares have traded enough volume to even allow for the possibility of this kind of takeover, it will be interesting to see how long their new found friends stick around.