After Buying DirecTV For $50 Billion In 2015, AT&T Now Seeks To Sell It For Under $20 Billion:
How do you destroy $30 billion in value in just five years? If you are AT&T, you buy DirecTV in 2015 for $50 billion and five years later you try to sell it - now renamed to AT&TTV - for less than $20 billion, a loss of 60% on the deal.
That, according to the Wall Street Journal is what AT&T hopes to do as it takes "a fresh look its DirecTV business" exploring a deal for a service wounded by cord-cutting. And by fresh look, the journal means sell.
When AT&T announced plans to acquire DirecTV in May 2014, the vision was to control some 26 million TV subscribers. However, the resulting slump in cable and satellite viewership due to the relentless encroachment of streaming services, the value of DirecTV has seen a sharp drop in recent years and the result is yet another catastrophic media deal. And since the pay-TV unit has shed 7 million U.S. video connections over the past two years, a deal could value the business below $20 billion, the WSJ sources said.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @12:06PM (2 children)
They made end up settling for much less than $20B. That's the initial offer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 30 2020, @01:41PM (1 child)
They're clearly unable to "turn it around" - best to get what they can while somebody else still thinks they can, otherwise its value will end up being less than the physical assets.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:45PM