joining us now is craig moffett of moffett nathanson.warner cable is pending regulation review. starting gun for people talking about it. whether or not it happens in other western. everybody that was questioning should we do something solve the comcast moves and said it may be now or never. we have to think about the regulatory environment. here is what i wonder about -- there are not a lot of players. it feels incestuous after a wild. directv is in talks with at&t. networkalks with dish before. there's not a lot of premium done and people do not have a lot of negotiating leverage. >> you are right. there are not that many different players. more importantly, the sec and the department of justice have are not going, we to do a lot of these deals. companies feel compelled to move forward anyway. the most interesting is sprint-t-mobile. they have been told that they're going to be rejected. softbank seems to think if we can get in front of the sec, we can explain to them how the wireless industry works and then they will -- >> will that c

craig moffett will speak to that head of directv later this week at the confab. mr. i guess the first question, tom, is really a question for at&t. that is, what is the real reason you're doing this transaction? for mark whited make sense. you have a -- for michael white it makes sense. why is now a good time to enter the satellite business? are they just chasing brian roberts? >> certainly, the comcast deal influences everything that is going on in the space right now. you do get the sense of this transaction, at least for at&t, that this is a deal that is born of necessity, rather than opportunity. there've have looked at all the possible options, they looked at buying vodafone, it is reasonable to think they have looked at buying dish network, and it seems like strategy by process of elimination rather process of figuring out what assets you need in order to compete. makes isy point craig effectively that at&t on its heels needs to do something. >> we love the deal. i think craig is asking the right questions. --g, do you think the top the comcast time warner deal

going to craig moffett in the moment. i think it is critical to show the division over the right steel. >> bank of america merrill lynch cutting deutsche bank to underperform as a result of this. rejecting what pfizer calls the final offer. they increase the bid to 55 towns per share. 117 billion in cash and stock. >> astrazeneca has put a number on it, 58 pounds. $.55.s effectively trading at a discount. >> i love the reporting. it is going to harm science. u.k. will harm jobs in the . pfizer would not give a guarantee that it will not cut jobs. that is the issue. >> a busy morning. >> this is official. up 1-0 in thee series. living onto at&t. directv.ed to by they gave the satellite tv provider in the nfl sunday ticket package to go along with the phone, wireless and high-speed internet services. this comes as time warner cable and comcast are sorting out their merger as well. front page as well. >> william: joins us. bloomberg television contributor. merger and acquisitions. any number of deals. honor to have howard li

. >>> craig moffett senior research analyst, you are widely renowned with how you understand this space for at&t. why is this good? why is there risk? >> well, i think the good is this is a company that pay as very large dividend. unfortunately they're cushion in cash flow is not that good. they're looking for access to more cash. this helps stabilize the dividends. the challenge is it's hard to find the strategic rash name in this deal. >> explain that. >> well, ten years ago when they first started looking at buying a satellite operator satellite was still in its ascendency. you could make a good case that there was a real business benefit here. now at&t about seven years ago got into the tv business themselves. that covers about 25% of the country. and satellite is just starting to decline. it seems a very odd time to try to tether a satellite business to a phone company today. >> sounds like a short-term strategy to you? >> certainly a cash generative stat strategy. how do you make hay out of this conversation? is there something strategically that's different than what these compan