Satellite broadcaster Dish Network is in the market with a new US$1bn bond offering.
The senior unsecured notes, which are being issued via subsidiary Dish DBS Corp, are an add-on to the company’s US$1bn 10-year 5.875% senior notes that were issued in…
Satellite broadcaster Dish Network is in the market with a new US$1bn bond offering.
The senior unsecured notes, which are being issued via subsidiary Dish DBS Corp, are an add-on to the company’s US$1bn 10-year 5.875% senior notes that were issued in May 2012.
The offering, which was doubled in size following strong investor demand, priced at 100.75 to yield 5.832%. Deutsche Bank is believed to have managed the sale, which is expected to close on 26 July 2012, subject to customary conditions.
Dish stated that proceeds from the offering will be used for general corporate purposes. In a research note, ratings agency Moody’s believed this could include the advanced funding of debt maturities over the coming years. Dish has total debt of around US$9.6bn of which approximately US$3.75bn is due to mature within the next four years.
Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s speculated that Dish may also consider using some of the proceeds to help fund its yet-to-be-defined wireless broadband strategy and in particular the S-band spectrum it owns through its purchases of mobile satellite operators Terrestar and ICO (DBSD) North America out of bankruptcy protection.
The company is currently awaiting an FCC ruling over whether it can utilise these spectrum assets to deploy a terrestrial-only wireless broadband network in the US.
Proceeds from the original US$1bn 5.875% senior notes were also designated for general corporate purposes, again thought to be predominantly to repay existing debt.
Those notes were part of a larger US$1.9bn financing, with the other tranche comprising US$900m of 5-year 4.625% senior.
Following this latest transaction, Dish has a leverage ratio of approximately 3.4 times debt-to-EBITDA.
