EchoStar buys more time to reach deal with FCC

EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen is buying himself some more time to work out a deal with the Federal Communications Commission, making more than $500 million in debt-interest payments and delaying an imminent potential bankruptcy filing. The interest payment was revealed in an 8-K filing, in which EchoStar answered a couple of questions that were looming over the company. For one, it doesn’t look like a bankruptcy filing is happening as soon as once thought because EchoStar is making at least one of the interest payments coming due. For another, it’s still hoping to reach some kind of resolution with the FCC after agency Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to take away certain spectrum licenses. But EchoStar clearly isn’t out of the woods yet. It elected not to make interest payments of about $114 million that are due on July 1, triggering another 30-day grace period. That ups the ante in what many analysts describe as a “game of chicken” that’s going on between EchoStar and the FCC. EchoStar has the cash to make its interest payments, but it’s using the threat of a bankruptcy filing as negotiating leverage with Chairman Carr, who, meanwhile, is threatening to take away some of Ergen’s spectrum licenses that allegedly aren’t being used.