{"id":85498,"date":"2011-01-24T17:50:48","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T09:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/analysts-see-motivation-for-apollos-auction-of-hughes\/"},"modified":"2011-01-24T17:50:48","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T09:50:48","slug":"analysts-see-motivation-for-apollos-auction-of-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/analysts-see-motivation-for-apollos-auction-of-hughes\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysts See Motivation for Apollo\u2019s Auction of Hughes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[01-24-11] Analysts\u2019 stock potential projections for <strong>Hughes<\/strong> surged after Reuters reported Jan. 20 that the company retained <strong>Barclays Capital<\/strong> to auction off the company.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cNews last night that Hughes has been put up for sale saw the shares spike 13 percent,\u201d <strong>Raymond James<\/strong> analyst Chris Quilty wrote in a report. \u201cWe reiterate our strong buy rating, as we believe Hughes\u2019 EBITDA expectations are achievable on the back of likely upside in the consumer business in 2011, promising longer-term trends in the enterprise VSAT business and international expansion.\u201d<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; While Hughes would not comment on the Reuters story to <em>Satellite TODAY Insider,<\/em> the company would not deny that initial bidding for the company would begin in early February.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hughes\u2019 majority owner, Apollo Management, has held a 57 percent stake in the company since 2004. Quilty said Apollo\u2019s desire to auction off the company may be an effort to avoid a liquidity trap. \u201cWe suspect that Apollo may have grown frustrated with Hughes\u2019 consistently depressed \u2018public company\u2019 valuation (historically two to four times its forward EBITDA, as compared to seven to 10 times for <strong>ViaSat<\/strong>, Hughes\u2019 closest peer) \u2026 We have regularly argued that Hughes\u2019 valuation discount is primarily a by-product of the stock\u2019s minimal float and poor trading liquidity,\u201d he said.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Raymond James\u2019 speculates that Hughes could potentially generate a share price range of $75 to $100 per share. Quilty said that while he sees no reason why Hughes\u2019 shares shouldn\u2019t trade up to that level, there are some downside risks for Hughes investors, especially considering that Apollo refused to sell Hughes stock for $50 during a 2008 offering.<br \/>\n&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cShould Apollo fail to receive a sufficient offer, there is a risk that the stock could fall back to Earth. We think this outcome is unlikely, however. Although Hughes\u2019 liquidity issues would still exist, investor \u2018awareness\u2019 of the Hughes story would likely support a share price in the mid-$60 range,\u201d said Quilty.<\/p>\n<h2>\nRelated Stories-<\/h2>\n<p>\n<b class=\"titlelink\">Hughes  2010 Broadband Terminal Business Boom Verifies Market Optimism<\/b>&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" align=\"top\" alt=\"\" src=\"..\/..\/..\/..\/images\/ico_bluekey.gif\">&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tSatellite Today&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tJanuary 19, 2011<br \/>\n[01-19-11] Hughes  Network Systems broke its own broadband satellite terminal shipment  record last year, reporting 327,000 units delivered and bringing its  cumulative number shipped worldwide to more than 2.5 million, CEO\u2026<\/p>\n<p><b class=\"titlelink\">Hughes Partners with Tachyon to Develop Military Airborne Solution<\/b> \t\t \t\t\t&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tSatellite Today&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tJanuary 18, 2011<br \/>\n[01-18-11] Hughes Network  Systems and Tachyon Networks have partnered to develop end-to-end  airborne COTM solutions for military manned and unmanned aircraft, the  companies announced Jan. 18. The partners will initially focus\u2026<\/p>\n<p><b class=\"titlelink\">Hughes Capitalizes on FCSA, Enterprise Markets with Next Generation Service Launches<\/b>&nbsp;<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"14\" height=\"14\" align=\"top\" alt=\"\" src=\"..\/..\/..\/..\/images\/ico_goldkey.gif\">&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tSatellite News&nbsp;&nbsp; \t\t\tJanuary 11, 2011<br \/>\n[01-11-11] Over the past two  months, Hughes Network Systems has unveiled a slew of new enterprise and  government service offerings, including technology service to the U.S.  government through its U.S. General Services Administration\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[01-24-11] Analysts\u2019 stock potential projections for Hughes surged after Reuters reported Jan. 20 that the company retained Barclays Capital to auction off the company. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cNews last night that Hughes has been put up for sale saw the shares spike 13 percent,\u201d Raymond James analyst Chris Quilty wrote in a report. \u201cWe reiterate our strong [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85498"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}