Overview
- Dish DBS, which EchoStar said could enter Chapter 11 as soon as Tuesday, June 30, 2026, will rely on a pre-negotiated restructuring supported by bondholders holding more than 82% of the unit’s roughly $10 billion in debt.
- The company has hired White & Case as legal counsel and FTI Consulting as financial advisor to run the bankruptcy process and implement the agreed transactions.
- EchoStar arranged spectrum license sales to AT&T and SpaceX that together are worth tens of billions of dollars but neither deal has closed, leaving uncertainty over the timing and size of funds available to pay down debt.
- Interest payments due June 1 on several bonds went unpaid and EchoStar said Dish DBS would cover those overdue obligations in mid-June, a stopgap that kept creditors at bay as the restructuring was finalized.
- EchoStar faces roughly $25 billion of consolidated debt and a shrinking pay-TV business that lost about 177,000 subscribers last quarter, and the filing follows a failed 2024 Dish–DIRECTV merger that shaped bondholder resistance and litigation risks.