ExpressVu valued at $108 million

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From cartt.ca this morning,

"While the overall price tag on taking Bell private is $39.8 billion, the deal values satellite service Bell ExpressVu at just $108.5 million and its regional Cablevision du Nord VOD license at $1.1 million, for the purpose of calculating the tangible benefits associated with the sale."

Funny how little that many customers are worth. Think the new owners would have any problems with shutting down or selling off ExpressVu with this kind of value on it?
 
That seems ridiculously low as it values the company at about $60 per customer which is likely less than 1 month's revenue. I would suspect the company is worth at least one years worth of revenue which would likely put its value north of a billion.
 
Well, they may be looking at the operations costs this year.
I know BEV has invested in a new sat for 2010 so perhaps the investment in the new sat has caused and undervaluation of the company?

Nem, who looks to the stars
 
Perhaps as a stand-alone business, it's not as attractive as it is in the Bell fold - do they pay market rates for use of transponders, for instance?
 
IIRC, transponders are leased from Telesat, which was sold by BGM some time ago. I don't think EV has ever made a profit. They are also looking at increased costs to complete the MPEG4 transition and add new HD services. Their transponder costs doubled with the addition of N2 and will go up another 50% with the addition of N5. Never mind how much they've spent on rental 9200s/6100s that must be replaced with new MPEG4 receivers in less than 2 years. Paying customers add to the value of a company but if the are also a projected liability to keep and support...
 
Based on the future uncertainties in the satellite industry, this is probably a very accurate estimate that TD put on Expressvu in order to evaluate risks in their financing to Ontario Teachers.

TD is not fooled by Sabia's history of number spinning. For example, he sold Telesat to the emerging from bankruptcy Loral + Quebec pension people for $1.35B on paper. In reality, the deal nets less than $200m to BCE coffers. That's because he signed additional contracts to Telesat for over $1.2B over 15 years.

That's like paying $12.00 for a Tim Horton's small to go.

TD knows that Ku/DBS transponder costs in N.A. will probably drop by at least 50% in the next 5 years. Dishnetwork is for sale. Charlie Ergan is already separating the manufacturing/satellite division into a separate company from Dishnetwork.

As soon as the US okays the XM/Sirius radio merger, Ergan will merge Dish with DTV. They will select DTV platform for 2 reasons: security + DTV Ka band satellites are better positioned.

Charlie will then have excess capacity on his own + Americom/Telesat long term leased satellites to sell/lease. Add to this, the fact that the next generation of DVB-2S + MPEG4 receivers will be capable of delivering 9 to 10 HD signals/transponder with better PQ than the HD lite that Expressvu delivers now.

So Expressvu will be stuck with higher operating delivery costs than any of their competitors plus their hardware development costs will increase with Dishnetwork gone.
 
Wow, that's a whole lot of speculation! Echostar builds better hardware. If anything, Charlie is separating that entity so that Echostar is free to sell their hardware to Direct TV (i.e. a competitor).

But back on topic, the declared value of BEV is not terribly relevant, since there is little chance it would be sold off. If you want to be player, you must offer Video, Data (Internet) and phone, together.

-Mike
 
I always wondered, but 108 mil for a huge satellite company? I suppose if you take all the issues and angry customers into account maybe, but wow that's a low number.
*C has to be worth much, much more.
 
Sell Bev off split it up and offer the peices to Rogers, Shaw etc. Shaw gets the western subscribers and gives them an offer to move to SC or cable on the cheap or free. It only costs them $60 a customer to buy them. They have no where else legal to go. They make that back in the first month. Rogers offers to move them to cable again what choice do the customers have.

Normally you would think the CRTC and competition watch dog would say no. But from what we have seen I bet the big 4 banks could agree to merge and the competition guys wouldn't bat an eye lid.
 
$60 a sub could be based on the total revenue divided by the diluted bases including the zillions that either get everything for FREE or maintain just a basic sub.

All their years thinking that piracy somehow gave them a competitive advantage may come back to haunt them and if you consider the costs to eliminate it, it just doesn't help their value proposition.

The real people that matter, the ones holding the purse strings just don't buy the whole piracy thing.

Low customer service ratings make each customers value much lower as loyalty and post contract churn weigh heavily on them.

Who knows what the long term supply agreements are with the Echostar breakup?
Is Echostar even in their future due to it's association with Nagrastar and the devaluation associated with the negatives they bring to the table.

Assets consisting of space junk that unlike terrestrial assets have some recycle value paint an uncertain future as the whole N.A. bird population is in play with potential consolidations.

If their had been any measure of sound fiscal growth and long term planning and viability, then values may have been higher.
We can easily see this with their recent spate of faulty decisions and lack of vision/direction.
 
And *C has been making a profit for some time. They also have a customer base that owns their equipment and have completed the transition to MPEG4 capable receivers.

A *C, EV acquisition/merger would make some sense in the long term but it won't happen while Shaw owns *C. I cannot see EV being split up and served by cable either. Rogers would rather see EV stumble and lose customers by attrition. There is also the issue of customers not possible to serve by cable. The only thing that makes sense is for Rogers to acquire EV at a bargain price in order to compete against Shaw/*C and reduce operating costs. Shaw and Rogers cooperate on a number of technical fronts now. That would turn them into national competitors and change the BDU landscape significantly.
 
I'm sure that either Dish or Direct TV would love to get even one of Bell's orbital slots and satellites for $100 million. I don't know where they get those numbers from.

-Mike
 
Those slots are assigned to Canada by international agreement. D* or Dish would have a difficult time acquiring them, even if they could get control of EV which they can't due to Canadian law.
 
That doesn't change their value. Don't forget that Direct TV is currently using the 72.5 orbital slot, which BEV owns.

-Mike
 
D* has temporary permission to use 72.5. It's because Canada isn't using it yet and even then they had trouble getting permission from US regulators. Canada has a couple of years to use 72.5 or risk losing it. I doubt Telesat, EV or industry Canada will let that happen. N6 is scheduled for launch and use at 72.5 in 2009.
 
Another example is Dish Network, which is using a good chunk of Anik F3. That's not a temporary arrangement and it's a Canadian owned satellite and slot (managed by Telesat).

Bell could always lease their space to Dish or Direct TV, even if BEV didn't exist. There is plenty of value there.

-Mike
 
Nimiq 5 is the bird due to take over at 73 degree's.

I think Nimiq 6 is a pipe dream, like iPTV and VDSL......
 
I got a little ahead there. :D N6 will be needed someday. N1 isn't going to last forever.
 
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