Sprint to make bid for T-Mobile as early as June

Shawn Knight

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sprint plan t-mobile bid banks pushed funds t-mobile acquisition buyout

T-Mobile’s reign as the un-carrier may be coming to an abrupt end. Sources close to the matter have told Bloomberg that Sprint is planning to move forward with plans to acquire the disruptive wireless carrier after meeting with banks last month to arrange funding.

Specifically, Sprint chief financial officer Joe Euteneuer and Treasurer Greg Block met with half a dozen banks in March. And with financing all set, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son – who owns roughly 80 percent of Sprint – plans to make a formal offer for T-Mobile in June or July.

No paperwork has been signed as it relates to borrowing, sources claim, as Son is still deciding how to pay for the purchase. In taking over T-Mobile, he would also take on the $8.7 billion in debt that T-Mobile has amassed.

Another unknown at this point is who would be in charge of the company. Early indications suggest existing T-Mobile CEO John Legere would get the nod. He’s no doubt done an admirable job at the helm thus far and has really shaken up the wireless industry.

Regulators will likely challenge what would be a merger of the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the US but the SoftBank chief and his advisors are anticipating as much. They’ll likely have a solid argument in place to try and convince the Federal Communications Commission that such a deal would be advantageous to the American people.

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They’ll likely have a solid argument in place to try and convince the Federal Communications Commission that such a deal would be advantageous to the American people.
It'll probably go something like this... Sprint's network is slow, but huge. T-mobile's is small, but fast. By combining them, we'll have a big, fast network. Hopefully the FCC won't pay attention to the fact that a) this argument doesn't make any sense and b) Sprint phones don't work on T-mo's network and vice versa.

They very well may allow the merger simply because Sprint is doing terribly, while T-mo is still relatively small. I don't see how combining them would create some huge over-bearing provider.
 
They’ll likely have a solid argument in place to try and convince the Federal Communications Commission that such a deal would be advantageous to the American people.
It'll probably go something like this... Sprint's network is slow, but huge. T-mobile's is small, but fast. By combining them, we'll have a big, fast network. Hopefully the FCC won't pay attention to the fact that a) this argument doesn't make any sense and b) Sprint phones don't work on T-mo's network and vice versa.

They very well may allow the merger simply because Sprint is doing terribly, while T-mo is still relatively small. I don't see how combining them would create some huge over-bearing provider.
If a deal like this went down in my country the regulators would certainly get in on the act shouting out the cons but the buyout would still go through smoothly because they'd be looking the other way after being after being made an 'offer'.
 
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I don't see how combining them would create some huge over-bearing provider.

If the FCC had a problem with this buy, it would probably be because of less competition and not how big Sprint would become...and CERTAINLY not because a foreign country is taking over all airwaves/frequencies.
 
People forget the issue isn't like it was with AT&T. AT&T wanted the whole company, Sprint only want the US version of the TMobile. That means Sprint will have nothing to do with Europe TMobile only USA TMobile.
The FCC don't care if Sprint take over TMobile, what they really care about is that TMobile is very big on the wireless side of things. By Sprint adding TMobiles Wireless to their company, it would make Sprint the biggest wireless carrier and that is what the FCC really care about. There would be very little competition and that could lead to higher prices so Sprint would have to show the benefit to the FCC on how the consumer would not get charged ridiculous amount of money for wireless.

Understand I said the biggest wireless carriers not cell phones. Verizon and AT&T will still be bigger companies at 100+ million and 80+ millions users. Sprint and TMobile together will combine for around 50 million users.
 
I will drop T-Mobile so fast. Sprint sucks. I hate. Hate everything about them. They will never see another dime from me.
 
I will drop T-Mobile so fast. Sprint sucks. I hate. Hate everything about them. They will never see another dime from me.
Where will you go? AT&T or Verizon? There really isn't much better and even combined T-Sprint won't be as bad as the other 2.
 
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