said by mogamer:Charlie Ergan controls both Echostar and Dish. Technically they are separate companies; but come on, you're smart enough to know the reality of the situation.
You are talking about logical partnering, benefitting both companies largely owned by one individual. That is vastly different than one company owning another, where the officers of the owning company can and do dictate to the owned company.
You might as well say that HughesNet owns DISH Networks, it would be an extension of the same logic.
There are a huge number of companies in this country that are owned by other companies, and they may form partnerships, get sold off, etc., but they don't necessarily own one another. For example, you would be unlikely to say that Benjamin Moore Paints owns Sees Candies just because Warren Buffett controls both.
Of course sometimes an owner will choose to put one company under another, such as when Rupert Murdoch bought Hughes Electronics from GM. The various Hughes companies were sisters to other elements such as DirecTV and PanamSat, and Murdoch chose to put them all under DirecTV and eventually sell them piece-by-piece. Such actions are public knowledge when the company is publicly traded, so if Charlie ever puts Hughes under DISH it will be widely known.
In the meantime there is a logical synergism between DISH and Hughes, and both would be crazy not to exploit that.