, Columnist
Careful Betting Against Charlie Ergen
He's doubled down on airwaves nobody else seemed to want, but Dish is still a merger candidate.
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Merger speculators waiting on the next big cable or telecom deal have a familiar question: What in the world is Charlie Ergen thinking?
The Chairman, CEO and controlling shareholder of satellite-TV provider Dish Network Corp. has dished out even more money for airwaves that his $27 billion company doesn't need, and which some analysts think kills Dish's chances of getting bought -- the whole reason many investors own the stock. It was a plot twist revealed by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission last week in the results of a year-long spectrum auction.