#1 - You need an interested party that wishes to purchase the licenses before 2019/2020. There is a very strong possibility that many deep pocketed parties are interested in buying Fibertower's 24/39 spectrum. 24 for backhaul activity and 39 for point to point wireless. Strategy and Planning takes many years and the companies interested in purchasing this wouldn't think twice about dropping the cash. $500M to $1B for these big players is nothing. Google, Amazon, Facebook, ATT, Verizon, Comcast, Charter, Cox, Century Link etc...
#2 - FCC and Bondholders would have to agree to the sale.
If they said no they they would be giving the appearance that they are standing in the way of the very thing they are trying to promote. The important thing is it would also allow them to save face and not be in a courtroom where their fly by the seat of their pants policies and enforcement would be exposed. Take for example StraighPath which renewed many of their licenses at locations where equipment never existed simply by falsifying paperwork and submitting. The FCC is apparently giving them a pass. Fibertower on the other hand was out there providing backhaul, developing products, working side by side with equipment vendors on enhanced PTP tech, Spectrum in a Box...etc....
#3 - The back of the envelope calculation I have been using to estimate the hurdle for where shareholders would see some return is $250M. $175M for the Bondholders, $50M for the Unsecured, and $25M for Misc. I have to assume there is quite a bit of overlap with those owning the bonds owning much of the common stock as well. It was trading at $.02 to $.04 for a very long time during BK and when it was finally extinguished. Very inexpensive for the Bondholders to hedge their positions in case of an outcome like #2.
#4 - Fibertower has an average of 354mhz of 39ghz spectrum and 244mhz of 24ghz spectrum in the top 50 markets. The dominoes are starting to fall with the fiber acquisitions and we have already seen Verizon pay $1.8B for XO communications for Fiber and Millimeter Wave Licenses. Is $500M fair for Fibertower? $1B? I don't know but having the deep pockets of $50B to $300B+ market cap companies interested in 5G and Point to Point should give one a lot of confidence.
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