– Company filings disclose expenses of $69 million, excluding most 2008 expenses –
– “Government-sanctioned monopolies apparently don’t come cheap” –
WASHINGTON, DC — XM and Sirius Satellite Radio have spent at least $69 million dollars seeking government approval of their proposed merger-to-monopoly, according to public filings submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
For XM, a filing only discloses expenses through December 31, 2007 amounting to $29.5 million. Merger-related expenses for Sirius were reported in the company’s 2007 10-K and their 10-Q for the first quarter of 2008. According to those filings, Sirius’s merger related expenses amounted to $29.4 million in 2007 and just over $10 million from January 1 – March 31, 2008.
XM failed to report merger-related expenses for the first quarter of 2008, and neither company has reported second-quarter merger-related expenses.
NAB Executive Vice President Dennis Wharton said, “Given the satcasters’ exorbitant spending reported so far, it is well within reason to assume their combined merger-related expenses are approaching 100 million dollars.”
“From the beginning, we knew XM and Sirius would say anything to gain blessing for a government-sanctioned monopoly, despite their years of brazenly abusing FCC rules,” said Wharton. “Now we know they will spend anything as well. But they are also finding that government-sanctioned monopolies apparently don’t come cheap.”
According to the companies’ SEC filings, the figures breakdown as follows:
XM Radio: $29.5 million in 2007 alone
XM reported spending $29.5 million on merger expenses from December 31, 2006 to December 31, 2007.
(Full Source: XM Satellite Radio Holdings, XM Satellite Radio Inc., 10-K for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007; 10-Q For Period Ending March 31, 2008.)
Sirius Satellite Radio – $39.5 million through March 2008
Sirius incurred $29.4 million in merger related costs for the year ended December 31, 2007.
(Full Source: Sirius Satellite Radio, 10-K for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007)
From January 1 to March 31, 2008, Sirius spent just over $10 million on activities directly related to the merger.
(Full Source: Sirius Satellite Radio, 10-Q for Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2007; 10-Q for Period Ending March 31, 2008.)
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