directv was spun off in 2021 at a fraction of what at&t paid for it.loomberg began reporting at&t is in negotiations to combine we assets with discovery. a major deal in the works and one that would undo the powerhouse built by his predecessor. back to you. shery: su keenan in new york. you can get a round up of the news on your terminal. it is also available on the mobile app. you can customize settings so you only get the news on the assets you care about. this is bloomberg. ♪ shery: members of the u.n. security council, including the u.s. and china, have called on israel and hamas to immediately halt more than a week of deadly fighting. israeli airstrikes on the gaza strip destroyed three buildings and killed at least 42 people sunday. benjamin netanyahu suggested attacks would continue despite efforts to broker a cease-fire. >> we will do whatever it takes to restore order and quiet. we are trying to degrade hamas' terraced abilities and will to do this again. it will take some time. i hope it will not take long. it will not be immediately. shery:

both of randall's deals are unwound with the directv deal and this, although this one is not done yet this is going back on both of those. it would make at&t simpler and obtain a lot of debt most debt of any non-financial company? >> yes >> i always say if this is -- go ahead, andrew. >> no, no. go ahead i'll add to it >> the only thing i'll say is that -- look, you are right on everything they spent building up if this deal is not structured the same way directv is, at&t shareholders own the majority of the directv deal if it is structured the same way, they would still get the benefit of it. letting somebody else manage it and spend the money that needs to be spent on the content and allowing them to continue to do things they weren't going to spend the money on the content because they have to build out 5g and s spectrum and dividend. if you were somebody who is a long-time holder, you need the dividend to come in. look at the stock price. they would never get credit for that maybe they still can take some of the up side of this without -- if they weren't going to spend money on th

as much of the cash flow as we do with the media company transaction, what we have done with the directvaction to resize the dividend as a result of that but general rating really attractive returns far in excess of the 5% yield that maybe the returns is the right thing to do for shareholders and want the business to grow organically. >> will be a somewhat different at&t in terms of shareholder base perhaps with organic growth being a priority you can see, of course, what they're targeting in terms of 20 billion in free cash flow for the payout ratio and 43 billion is debt reduction and use it to expand, to compete against the likes of t-mobile, comcast our parent with a wireless business and verizon. look at the properties to be brought together but may be a reason looking now at stocks scroll down. >> we have shares of potential rivals down like comcast and also looking at charter or other asets. >> yep. >> there's disney doing 3% and think shareholders must like the tie-up. >> listen. there's a lot to digest here for investors to understand and frankly still a lot to yet know in terms

are seeing now from at&t is moves to divest and refocus the business it is concentrating on directv warner media in the content space, it is all about scale. >> what are the regulatory outlet do you expect anti-trust issues to crop up with the deal >> i think it will be heavily scrutinized by the regulators. that was the case when at&t announced the acquisition of time warner. the collection of all of those content assets into one place is going to raise eyebrows. particularly, assure equal access to everybody in the market >> i want to come back to the comment around content we have the notion of content is king streaming services heavily investing in content what will it look like after five years how many major players will survive? >> that is a great question. too many companies chasing few dollars. the holy grail is content a aggregation. netflix is part of the household set up then you have disney plus and then amazon prime and a long tail of other services that's why we see moves by the content giants getting together. this is the start of consolidation. otherwise we will hav

the execution was left to be desired on both fronts certainly with directv strategy also was flawed you days of a conglomerate at&t is over. from the capital market standpoint wasn't realistic. >> michael, you must be the most polite guy out there you said the timing was poor, but they overpaid and had no strategy michael white, former ceo of directv and others michael, thank you for coming on it is a changing landscape we think comcast has done a pretty did job >> thank you take care. >>> thank you. coming up, we'll answer the most important question you will hear all day. twinkies, ding dongs, cupcakes or something else? what is your favorite sthoess product? the ceo is here. i've loved trucks since i was a little girl, and now i get to drive the biggest, coolest trucks there are on the road. on my routes on a daily basis i might have 1,100 to 1,400 stops which to me that's 1,100 opportunities to connect with my customers. everyday is another chance to bring a smile to someone's face, and that's what makes me excited about tomorrow. wondering what actually goes into your multivitamin?

and the other crazy deal that is still hurting at&t, and that's directv which they just spun out again, in that case keeping a minority stake, but getting far less than i think it was the $40 billion they paid for it. is so those are the losers. one other potential loser, i say potential because if this deal turns out to be a net-net for shareholders, the ceo, john stanke. he has his fingerprints on these two deals, directv which was, obviously, a horrendous one and this time warner thing which, you know, depends on who you talk to, did not work off the so he's there too. but a spin-off, very tax efficient. they got some cash for it, they could pay down some of the debt, start investing in 5g which is what they wanted to do. you know, it could be a long-term winner, but still you've got to, you know, he's going to stay on the radar screen for investors, marley activist investors going forward. -- particularly activist investors. back to you. liz: who knows? bob green blat? i mean, this is really fascinating. as the pundits ponder what the merger means for entertainment, streaming, news

internet broadband from space, connecting rural , s communities all over the world., we think about directv, dish network, xm radio.ork. we think about the timing signal from gps being necessary to hae regulate the flows of data on the terrestrial wireless network.t if we don't have that gps signal, we're not going to haveo our cell phones. they simply will not work. the terrestrial wireless netword does not work without a gps and timing signal. so the way we communicate, the way we navigate, the way we produce food, the way we producd energy, the way we do disaster relief, the way we understand nderstan the way we not just understand but predict weather and save lives. the way we understand the climate, the way we do national security and defense. we think about that timing signal from gps. it is fundamentally necessary to regulate the flows of at electricity on the power grid. we lose that gps signal, the ysm power grid is then at risk. as well as the banking system it the united states. every banking transaction dependent on a timing signal bt from gps.to lot a bottom line is this. as th

as much as the cash flow as we do with the media company transaction, what we have done with the directvidend as a result of that, but more importantly, using that cash flow to something we know we can generate really attractive returns far in excess of the 5% yield that maybe the dividend returns is the right thing to do for shareholders, and we want this business to grow organically, and that's my goal and objective. >>> david, i want to turn to you as well for, you know, what your expectations are for this new collasus that you're going to be running. it's going to take a year to get approvals, and i want to ask about that as well. are you concerned a talent train, followed up with thousands of layoffs the synergy number i assume will include some job losses. how are you going to plan to keep people that you need to, and obviously a creative business >> yeah, well, look, we're a creative company with us, it starts with getting the best people in front of the screen and behind the screen, and there's really wonderful people at warner a lot of them are complementary to us. we're not in

teachers he had to school, it's possible we weren't to motivate the children to have them continue with directv. to do the homework, that would be every turn strategy ah, updating itself stories for you. so thought today here on al jazeera, you leaders according to the sanctions on bella, rue soft. what they say was the hijacking of a commercial aircraft. they're accusing, beller is faking a bomb threat in order to force the plane to land. the then detained an opposition journalist for brandon has more on the international reaction howls of outrage. i mean, 1st of all, they were dumbfounded european leaders. they always couldn't believe it. reactions initially were very mild until they realized exactly what was going on. i've looked at the timeline of the social media posts, and 1st of all, we just glad to build the aircraft to been allowed to take off again with no bomb discovered. and then they realized exactly what had happened that a journalist have been taken off the plane that apparently for russian speaking people had also got. busy off in minsk, which raises the very grave suspicion tha

there deal with directv and time warner never really got a chance to payoff.illion in the past few years. -- at&t has spent 85 to -- has spent 85 billion dollars in the past few years. in 2016 they bought time warner. by 2017, the trump administration had the justice department taking a look that delayed this deal. by 2019, a big activist investor was already putting pressure on the company to get rid of directv. in 21, they spun it off. it is a reversal of the past few years. paul: su keenan there in new york. you can read more about at&t's plans to take on netflix in today's edition of "daybreak." look on your terminals. this is also available mobile on the bloomberg anywhere app. let's get a quick check on the latest business headlines. the delivery arm of e-commerce giant jd.com is seeking to raise as much as 3.4 billion dollars in its hong kong initial public offering. they will offer 609 .2 million shares. jd logistics will be the second largest ipo in the city this year. lg is investing 35 million dollars -- billion dollars to strengthen its supply chai

we think about directv, dish, xm radio. we think about timing signals from gps necessary to regulate the flows of data on the terrestrial wireless network. if we don't have that signal, we are not going to have our cell phones, they simply will not work. the network does not work without gps so the way we communicate and navigate, the way we produce food and energy, the way we do disaster relief and understand whether, not just understand but to predict whether and save lives. the way we understand climate and national security and defense, we think about that from gps, it's fundamentally necessary to regulate electricity on the power grid. we lose the gps signal, the power grid is at risk. as well as the banking system in the united states, banking transactions are dependent on the signal from gps bottom line, as the nasa administrator, i heard a lot about velcro i'm here to tell you the economic impact from space for the everyday american citizens in a way most americans don't realize, it's an extra potential threat to th

diving into the bloomberg you can see that at&t has lagged other media rivals since it bought directvver really paid off, and the spinoff, as mentioned by the ceos themselves, will give at&t about 43 billion to pay down that debt. that appears to have been a key goal. yvonne: a lot of reports on this other potential m&a opportunity as well, amazon. their latest efforts, i guess, and talks to buy a major hollywood studio, mgm. su: according to two reports, one from information, which is a tech news outlet, and the other from variety, amazon is in discussions to acquire the studio mgm. it's a legendary studio behind the james bond series. according to variety, amazon is weeks into negotiation to buy the studio for about 9 billion. neither company, amazon or mgm is commenting. it would be amazon's biggest deal yet and to entertainment. in the mgm would be seen as helping bolster amazon prime's streaming service. we do know that mgm has tried several times in the past to create deals. it was seen as a takeover target. it has a huge inventory of films such as silence of the lambs. and it h

i think when you think about the at&t directv situation, it was or arriving, and if they can. >> cramer tweeted, i don't think possibility realize at&t will have at least a 50% dividend cut. if you want income, you want to be sold. do you want to respond to that tweet? it got my attention. >> we didn't buy at&t for the dividend again, this is a long-term play. we do like total return, but at&t is not a value stock for us we're not buying it for the dividend i think it also depends on, if you owned it, what you want to do with it, and if you just bought it, what your plan is for us, we just bought it and our plan is to hold it long term >>> coming up next, the big etfs you need to watch today. we're back in just two minutes in business, it's never just another day. it's the big sale, or the big presentation. the day where everything goes right. or the one where nothing does. with comcast business you get the network that can deliver gig speeds to the most businesses and advanced cybersecurity to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a

tosser's laptop computer it is et cetera, the way we communicate think about this --o connecting directv xm radio we think about the timing ?al from gps being necessarying to regulate the flows of data on the tres cial wireless network if we don't have that gps signal we d don't have cell phone the e way we produce food, energy and do disaster relief an the way we understand weather and way not just under but predict weather an save lives the way we understand climate and way we do national security and defense we think about that timing signal from gps it is fundamentally necessary to regulate theen flos of electricity on the power grid. we lose that gps signal the power grid is then at risk. as well as the banking system in the united states everybody banking transaction dependent on timing signal from gps. bottom line is this, as nasa administrator i heard a lot about tang and velcro i'm here to tell you that misses the economic impact from spaces for the everyday american citizen in a way that most americans don't realize it but if we lose space it is an existential threat to united

equity the deal before that in the sector that was arguably, at least one of the largest, at&t buying directvn debt in 2014. both transactions have been unwound by at&t ceo john stankey. he was instrumental in buying both of the businesses it was a remarkable aboutface. >> john stankey was not the ceo at the time. i want to make it clear to the viewers. at&t spent yearsracking up hug debt and randall stevenson pmade tens of billions of dollars. in less than a year, his former number two, the ceo, saying we will unwind all of that. everything you spent doing, former ceo, we will undo while everyone internally made t tens of millions i'm all forg getting paid. the reversal in the stratosphere, alex, is shocking. >> it will be interesting to hear from john stankey in the days to come about why he decided now is the right time to do this and also about why at&t bought time warner initially if you go back a few years, i wrote a story about this in december listen to what randall stevenson said a bunch of word salad that never panned out the content and mobility and making the new thing to enhance

decided there were synergy between mobile phones and entertainment and news he has since acquired directv and time warner. and i have gone through the reasons why he has obtained time warner, and i defy you to come up with a single bit of rationale, especially since it was clear that direct tv was a huge bust. he left the company last year. once we stepped down, another ceo took over, and he realized they had to do something to lessen the debt burden and maintain the shareholder's dividend that they craved. people who owned at&t are not chasing growth, they are widows, orphans and grannies who need income their the least short-term, most long-term and most trusting investors you could ask for. blindly trusting but apparently at&t needed to spend more money to stay competitive with t-mobile and verizon. he sends time warner for $43 billion in a stake in a company that will merge for discovery. and at the same time, he had been encouraging people to not worry about the dividend, told you it was fine. and goes ahead and slashes the dividend in in half. they didn't say it point blank, but he

company and in return giving the shareholder an equity interest in that, we sold off part of the directv flows associated with it. it would be only normal for a company to come in and relook the diffident given that the asset base is kind of resized a bit. and as we guided and shared with the market, we're going to be in about a 40 to 43% payout rate when we set that. that's going to have the at&t dividend for the shareholders that stayed behind, the top 95% of yield for dividend paying stocks. still going to be very attractive dividend. and so some of that money that we're not paying out dividends now we're putting back into the business to reinvest and higher growth, higher return opportunities in broad bapband wireless. every shareholder should want us to do that. it's better than to pay a 5% diffident to go out and put it into something that can return 18, 19% and generate the value and growth associated with that. >> so, david, again, just to state the obvious, we're talking about this deal on a channel, a network that is part of the deal. i want to spend a little bit of time own. t

. >> at&t got in big into the entertainment business, directv and time warner and now getting -- >> now unwinding that. although, at&t shareholders will remain very much invested in this new media company. so in effect what we're seeing is an unwinding of a deal five years ago. at&t focused on wireless and broa broadband. but you're going to try to be invested in the future of streaming. it's remarkable to see how the world is changing because of consumer preferences. stream whatever show you want wherever you want. discovery and warner coming together. >> cnn is part of this deal. >> cnn is part of the deal. we don't know anything more than that. >> brian stelter, thank you for the news. >>> new detail this morning in the divorce saga between bill and melinda gates. the outer at microsoft came after there was an investigation of a romantic relationship he had with an employee 20 years ago. joining me now is emily glazier. she's part of the reporting team that broke this story. >> reporter: late in 2019 a microsoft employee and engineer sent a letter that allegedly reached the board. th

after at&t threw billions of dollars at failed t-mobile merger, before spending billions more on directvked, is dyeing. joining us, professor at the nyu school of business and co-host of the pivot podcast and dylan byers, nbc news, senior media reporter. scott, what do you make of this deal? these guys who run these media companies can paid millions and millions of dollars but it seems the decisions they make lose billions and billions of dollar >> yeah, this cash flow will be the most expensive vacation in los angeles ever. verizon lost $5 billion. if you look at the at&t divestiture, they get to offload approximately $44 billion in debt. if the company is worth $60 billion and they own 70%, generously they might go to $80 billion, they paid $110 and owned it 3 years, basically at&t's decision to get into media has cost shareholders about a billion dollars a month. this will go down -- time warner is the kevin bacon, stephanie, the catastrophic acquisitions. they made the worst acquisition with aol probably in corporate history. when they sell to at&t, this will be seen probably as one

then i look at the time warner deal as a bit of an effort to fix the directv deal and maybe we couldole lot in this world. i think -- it's very clear to me, by the way the only thing i would dispute it's very clear to me that the time warner transaction from a financial perspective, and from a strategic perspective, at&t is extracting a huge amount of value and it has a format with a lot of synergy financing it, that part is wrong. i think that's demonstrably wrong. but i think where we sit today and we have our obligation to maximize the value they have the capacity to take advantage of the synergies that previously were only available byning more on the inside of at&t. and then have them present the marketplace something they find less complicated and which value can be maximized by shareholders and a telecom multiple and having, by the way, john stankey emphasized this, it's not to be lost in this, we now have in front of this at&t two very high return businesses and the 5g and the broadband buildout that is a very good commercial proposition. he will have a clear path, cash flows

he was behind with randall stephenson, which they fought in court against trump and directv, another back to you, jackie. jackie: so interesting, charlie, to see how things can change literally in a new york minute for people as you're sort of laying out the playerers and how this will work. thank you so much for bringing that to us. we'll talk to you soon. >>> meantime bitcoin prices are rebounding from a three-month low after elon musk clarify as tweet over tesla's bitcoin holdings. we're back with our panel, ann berry, hal lambert. ann, start with you. musk was behind bitcoin and walking it back and is wondering why everyone is confused? >> yeah he does definitely move bitcoin prices with one character at a time, jackie. i think on this one there needs to be clarification that two separate things have happened. first of all tesla came out we'll take bit own as a means of payment for our cars. then they came out they won't do that anymore because it is not environmentally friendly and tesla marketed itself as environmentally friendly means of car ownership. this step away from usin

out and run up the largest amount of debt in corporate america history to buy time warner, to buy directvs a really great growth technology for the future. verizon has protected their dividend. the other one, we talked about a lot on your show is midstream energy, the oil and gas pipelines. the ticker is umi. it is paying almost a 7% dividend but you have all of these volumes of oil and gas flowing through the pipelines and it is not worried about what the price of the oil and gas is. the business strategy is on volumes, we know more than ever after last week how much we need more pipelines in this country. stuart: your strategy is to look at countries that pay a strong, growing reliable dividend. has that worked for you and your clients in recent years? >> it absolutely has, stuart. here is the recent thing. when you don't own the hot dot issue, people say i might miss out on something. if you don't blow up from the hot spot issue it pays for itself, doesn't it? a lot of people think about the strategy you give up return. you do not. over extended period of time dividend growers, have ou