EMS in $3.2 Billion Deal; EchoStar Acquires Hughes Comm for $2 Billion

Bikram Pandey
14 Feb, 2011
New York City

U.S. stocks edged lower in the early trading after rising in 12 of the last fifteen trading sessions. Japan economy shrank 1.1% in the last quarter and fell to the third place after the U.S. and China. China

[R]10:10 AM New York – U.S. stocks edged lower in the early trading after rising in 12 of the last fifteen trading sessions. Japan economy shrank 1.1% in the last quarter and fell to the third place after the U.S. and China. China’s trade surplus shrank 55%. Emergency Medical agreed to go private for $3.2 billion. Echostar agreed to acquire Hughes Communications for $2 billion.[/R]

Stocks in early trading in New York edged lower but the benchmark indexes S&P 500 and the Dow have gained in 12 of the last fifteen sessions. The rally in the indexes is driven by economic data and earnings but also investors desire to return money from emerging markets to the developed markets.

Merger deals dominated the news on Monday.

EchoStar Corp agreed to acquire rival Satellite television services provider Hughes Communications Inc for $2 billion or $60.70 a share. The offer price is 31% higher than the closing price on Jan 19, a day before the probable deal was first reported by Reuters.

The deal values Hughes acquisition at nearly 9 times operating earnings.

Emergency Medical Services Corp agreed to be acquired by a leverage equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice LLC for $3.2 billion.

The EMS shareholders will receive$64 a share, lower than the closing price of $70.66 a share on Friday.

The emergency medical and staffing services provider is expected to benefit from the recent overhaul of the healthcare bill and is expected to benefit the company.


Chinese trade surplus in January declined 55% from a year ago to $6.5 billion after exports soared 37.7% to $150.7 billion and imports surged 53.5% to $144.3 billion.

The trade surplus declined to a nine-month low as the fast economic growth in the domestic market powered the imports.

China’s surplus with the U.S. rose 24.8% to $13.6 billion and with the European Union rose 7.8% to $12.4 billion. China also registered trade deficit with the rest of the world of $19.5 billion.

Gross Domestic Product in the last quarter to December in Japan declined 1.1% annual rate. The decline in the economy was the first in five quarters, the Cabinet Office.

The GDP declined 0.3% in the quarter from the previous quarter ending in September and real GDP rose 3.9% in 2010.

Exports declined 0.7% and imports fell 0.1%. Japan’s GDP in 2010 was $5.47 trillion slightly under China’s GDP of $5.88 trillion.

Industrial output in 16-nations euro zone decreased 0.1% and in the wider zone of EU 27 from previous month and rose 8.0% in the euro area and 7.7% in the EU 27 from a year ago.

Credit Suisse Group AG agreed to sell to investors in Saudi Arabia and Qatar convertible bonds to raise Sfr6.2 billion to raise capital to meet regulator requirements.

The Swiss bank will sell the bonds to existing shareholders Qatar Holdings LLC and Olayan Group no earlier than October 2013 according to a statement released by the bank.

Banks are expected to sell as much as $1 trillion of contingent convertible bonds by 2015 to meet the revised capital guidelines laid out by the Basel III agreement.