Darsana Capital Partners LP Makes New $36.91 Million Investment in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Darsana Capital Partners LP purchased a new stake in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 2,072,305 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $36,908,000. EchoStar accounts for 1.0% of Darsana Capital Partners LP’s holdings, making the stock its 12th largest position.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. BNP Paribas Financial Markets grew its position in EchoStar by 118.4% during the fourth quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 31,595 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $524,000 after buying an additional 17,130 shares in the last quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC lifted its position in EchoStar by 16.2% during the fourth quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 29,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $482,000 after purchasing an additional 4,049 shares during the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new position in EchoStar in the 4th quarter worth approximately $42,000. P Schoenfeld Asset Management LP bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the 4th quarter worth $3,782,000. Finally, Pennant Select LLC purchased a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at $36,892,000. 33.62% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. StockNews.com upgraded EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and set a $12.00 target price on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their price objective on EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.00.

EchoStar Stock Up 1.5 %

SATS stock opened at $25.70 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $6.98 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.33 and a beta of 0.70. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $20.45 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $17.88. EchoStar Co. has a fifty-two week low of $9.53 and a fifty-two week high of $27.15. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.32 and a current ratio of 0.40.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.37) by ($0.39). EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 0.18% and a negative net margin of 18.65%. The business had revenue of $3.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.39 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.81 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

EchoStar Profile

EchoStar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides networking technologies and services worldwide. The company operates in four segments: Pay-TV, Retail Wireless, 5G Network Deployment, Broadband and Satellite Services. The Pay-TV segment offers a direct broadcast and fixed satellite services; designs, develops, and distributes receiver system; and provides digital broadcast operations, including satellite uplinking/downlinking, transmission and, other services to third-party pay-TV providers; and multichannel, live-linear and on-demand streaming over-the-top internet-based domestic, international, Latino, and Freestream video programming services under the DISH and SLING brand names.