QS Research · Michael Burry's Scion Capital analyst template · 2006
EchoStar CORP (ECHO)
As of 2026-11-11 · 12/15 boxes filled from SEC filings and market data
Report price $104.16 (close 2026-11-10)
Conclusion: WATCH
Conviction low · base case +212% · downside -72% · upside +46%
The market is paying 35.5x TTM EBITDA and 15.8x normalized EBITDA for a business whose revenue fell from $19.82B (FY2021) to $12.17B TTM, whose operating cash flow is -$84.0M and FCF -$532.8M, and whose $9.89B TTM net income is 98% non-operating ($11.45B of items against $273.8M of EBIT). The cheap 3.7x GAAP P/E is an artifact; the operating tax-normalized P/E is 158.5x and ROIC is 1.8% against a cost of capital well above it. The independent anchor (peer median 11.55x P/E) gives a $325.15 base, but that base rests on earnings averaged over a cycle rather than today's $273.8M EBIT, and the downside at the peer-low 1.36x sales multiple is about $59 (-43%), so the reward/risk does not clear the long rule. This is a watch: the AT&T/SpaceX spectrum monetization and the DISH DBS emergence are real dated catalysts, but until the post-deal earnings base is visible the stock is expensive on operating numbers, not cheap.
Key numbers
- Share price: $104.16
- Market cap: $36.58B
- Latest financial period: TTM to Sep 30, 2026
- Revenue (TTM): $12.17B
- EV / EBITDA (TTM): 35.5x
- P/E (TTM): 3.7x
- FCF yield: -1.5%
- Price / book: 2.16x
- P/E, operating (tax-normalized) (TTM): 158.5x
- Revenue growth (latest fiscal year): -5.2%
- ROIC (TTM): 1.8%
- EV / EBITDA sanity: outside the sector range
The 15 boxes
- ✓ 1. Long-form business notes
EchoStar today is a highly levered, going-concern-flagged holding company whose FY2025 10-K describes Pay-TV, Wireless and Broadband, and Satellite Services businesses, versus the FY2020 10-K's two-segment Hughes/ESS satellite-broadband company that had just spun off its BSS business to DISH. The XBRL series shows revenue stepping from $1.89B (FY2020) to $19.82B (FY2021) and then sliding to $15.00B (FY2025) and $12.17B TTM to Sep 2026, with operating income of $3.42B (FY2021) collapsing to -$17.72B (FY2025) before a $273.8M operating profit TTM. TTM net income to common of $9.89B sits against $273.8M of TTM operating income, so the bottom line is not an operating result and the XBRL facts do not name the non-operating items driving it. Cash flow has turned negative (operating cash flow -$99.4M FY2025, -$84.0M TTM) while debt was $25.980B at Dec 31, 2025.
- ✓ 2. Competitive advantage
The sources show no durable competitive advantage: group operating income went from +$3.42B in FY2021 on $19.82B of revenue to losses in FY2023, FY2024 and a $17.72B loss in FY2025, and operating cash flow has turned negative (-$84.0M TTM to 2026-09-30), so the large TTM net income to common of $9.89B is not an operating result. In Broadband and Satellite Services the FY2025 segment produced negative OIBDA of $1,202.8M (vs +$341.9M in FY2024) and lost 144,000 net subscribers, against ViaSat and SpaceX in North America. In Wireless the company has given up its own network — all customer traffic was migrated to AT&T's network as of November 15, 2025 — and the 10-K itself says Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile are significantly larger and enjoy scale advantages. What remains that resembles an advantage is contractual and regulatory: long-term enterprise contracts, 82 licensed DBS frequency channels, and $30B+ of spectrum licenses, a material amount of which is being sold.
- ✓ 3. 10-Q takeaways
The Q3 2026 10-Q is not a comparable quarter: DISH DBS was deconsolidated effective June 30, 2026 (substantially all of Pay-TV and the Other segment) and Hughes effective July 31, 2026 (substantially all of Broadband and Satellite Services), so the quarter carries only part-period results and the company says results are "materially different" from Q3 2026 onward. Reported earnings are one-off driven, not operating: a $3.107 billion gain on the AT&T Transactions in the three and nine months ended September 30, 2026, plus $9.729 billion (nine months) and $439 million (three and nine months) of non-cash deconsolidation gains. Cash and obligations were reshaped by the July 28, 2026 AT&T Closing ($20.250 billion received, $2.4 billion into an FCC-mandated trust booked as an offsetting escrow asset and liability) and by debt prepayments. Q4 2026 will again look different because DISH DBS was reconsolidated prospectively from the October 1, 2026 emergence date.
- ✓ 4. Corporate governance
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 5. Overview of the prior 3 years of 8-K filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 6. Other significant filings
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 7. Chronology of significant news and events
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 8. Comparables valuation interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 9. Insider trading interpretation
Filled; members read this box.
- ○ 10. Earnings-call notes
- ○ 11. Impression of the shareholder letter
- ○ 12. Scuttlebutt overview
- ✓ 13. Valuation and risk/reward summary
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 14. Current price suppression and potential catalysts
Filled; members read this box.
- ✓ 15. Conclusions
The call above.
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