Keeping a Billionaire's Satellite Dream Spinning

If you're a foreign bidder bent on a controversial takeover of a U.K. company, you can do worse than use the playbook Softbank Group Corp. turned to when it acquired chip designer Arm Holdings in 2016. By contrast, EchoStar Corp. has chosen to be more opportunistic in its pursuit of London-based satellite operator Inmarsat Plc. Perhaps that's only to be expected from its billionaire poker-pro founder Charlie Ergen. On Friday, at the eleventh hour, EchoStar revealed a sweetened, but unconvincing, 2.45 billion pound ($3.2 billion) proposal which the Inmarsat board has justifiably rejected.