Sprint reportedly drops takeover bid for T-Mobile, to replace CEO Dan Hesse [ux2]

Posted:
in iPhone edited August 2014
After months of speculation and rumor, a report on Tuesday claims Sprint is no longer considering a takeover of T-Mobile, a merger that would have created a viable competitor to dominant U.S. cellular providers Verizon and AT&T.

Sprint-T-Mo


Citing a source familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal has written a short blurb saying Sprint has abandoned its pursuit of T-Mobile after assessing regulatory hurdles as insurmountable. The development perhaps opens the door for French telecom Iliad, which was rebuffed in its recent attempt to buy out the U.S. carrier.

The driving force behind Sprint's hyped T-Mobile takeover was Masayoshi Son, whose SoftBank conglomerate owns an 80 percent stake in the company. Previous reports claimed an official bid would be filed in June or July ahead of finalization in September, though that window has come and gone without word from either Son or Sprint.

Deutsche Telekom, majority owners of T-Mobile, is reportedly open to offloading its U.S. operation for a mostly-cash deal. Most recently, French newcomer Iliad proposed a 56.6 percent buyout for $15 billion, though the offer is much lower than Sprint's deal that was estimated to be worth $32 billion.

Earlier today, the WSJ reported that T-Mobile rejected Iliad's request for financial data, saying the initial bid was inadequate. Despite a lower merger price, an Iliad takeover of T-Mobile may be more likely to gain regulatory approval than a merger with Sprint, which would effectively join the third- and fourth-largest wireless telecoms in the U.S.

According to the publication, Sprint will make an announcement regarding the scrapped T-Mobile takeover on Wednesday.

Update: Coming on the heels of news that Sprint has abandoned its T-Mobile takeover plans, Bloomberg reports the telecom will replace CEO Dan Hesse as soon as Wednesday. Further, the publication corroborates the WSJ report, saying both Sprint and T-Mobile were willing to move forward with a deal, but ultimately decided to scrap the plan as gaining regulatory approval was a highly unlikely scenario.

Update 2: Sprint plans to tap Brightstar founder Marcelo Claure as its new CEO, with the current Sprint board member replacing outgoing chief executive Dan Hesse, reports Re/code. SoftBank, majority stake holders in Sprint, bought controlling interest of the wireless hardware distributor in 2013.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 16

    Wonderful. T-Mo should remain independent.

  • Reply 2 of 16
    oberpongooberpongo Posts: 182member
    It wouldn't have gotten approved anyway
  • Reply 3 of 16
    fuzzypawsfuzzypaws Posts: 111member
    Happy to hear this, because I left Sprint for a reason. They can't do anything right and they have terrible customer service. I'd have to look into Iliad since I don't know anything about them, but as long as they have a better reputation than Sprint and would be willing to keep John Legere and his core team on in the wake of their obvious success, I'm good.
  • Reply 4 of 16
    roos24roos24 Posts: 170member
    German companies are seldom for sale, unless their owners have an ulterior motive. If T-Mobile would have been sold, the Germans (Deutsche Telekom) would have made sure that they would be controlling the buyer in no time. It's obvious that the Japanese did not want that to happen. Somewhere I read that there are four national carriers. How national are these when one of those is in German hands and another owned by the Japanese?
  • Reply 5 of 16
    Best news all year long. T-mobile is pretty much the competitor that is actually doing something to drive down the prices. Hopefully, their un-carrier thing keeps going for the next few years and we can get better prices.
  • Reply 6 of 16
    I don't know why Sprint and its dead-end CDMA-based network are still around. But I'm glad to see Hesse go.
  • Reply 7 of 16
    Breathing a sigh of relief. All I needed was for my beloved T-Mobile to be destroyed by the No Network.
  • Reply 8 of 16
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton View Post

    I don't know why Sprint and its dead-end CDMA-based network are still around. But I'm glad to see Hesse go.

     

    Verizon’s CDMA network is the best in the country. Not sure how dead that end is.

  • Reply 9 of 16
    Verizon LTE is the best in the country. Its CDMA is despicably slow around the country.
  • Reply 10 of 16
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by ny3ranger View Post

    Verizon LTE is the best in the country. Its CDMA is despicably slow around the country.

     

    Because they don’t use CDMA for data anymore, except as a fallback to 3G.

  • Reply 11 of 16
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post

     

     

    Verizon’s CDMA network is the best in the country. Not sure how dead that end is.


     

    Verizon is transitioning to LTE. So, CDMA is pretty dead end long term. 

  • Reply 12 of 16
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ny3ranger View Post



    Verizon LTE is the best in the country. Its CDMA is despicably slow around the country.

     

     

    Not sure where you are getting your information. There was a recent cross the country test comparing the big four's data networks in various states across the Country. Each company had areas in the Country where they excelled. On average, however,  AT&T came in first, with T-Mobile a very close second. Verizon was a close third place. Sprint was a distant fourth place.

  • Reply 13 of 16
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post

    Verizon is transitioning to LTE. So, CDMA is pretty dead end long term. 


     

    Good luck. VoLTE still isn’t standardized, last I heard.

     

    Not that I’m not okay with everyone moving to a single tech, just that it can’t happen yet.

  • Reply 14 of 16
    truffoltruffol Posts: 50member
    Dan Hesse...always thought he was the most innovative CEOs amongst the four big carriers. Great TV persona too haha
  • Reply 15 of 16
    silexsilex Posts: 1member
    Things that should have been done a long time ago. I used to work for this company as one of the country's leading salesmen and could not wait to get out. Their hierarchy is so halfa** backwards on sales and business model is a joke. I faught against it at every turn to show how sales should be done. They pushed out their top reps for warm bodies at registers and snuffed their commissions with lies. They have very old folks running the show as regional managers that cannot keep up with the technologies. I place blame on shareholders not stepping up sooner. Looks like Softbank will put an end to this fairly quick and start going after Sprint failed hierarchy next. They are more concerned about locking ESN's to folks that cannot pay their bills. Heres an idea "who cares"! Whats more important is that the handset gets back on the network and starts generating revenue. I love the nose in the air attitude these guys have with the low demographic in which they control. Make no mistake, Hesse was forced out by Softbank, and many to follow. I cannot imagine any other wireless entity taking any of the management staff on board. They have a sinking CDMA ship, and they keep trying to push it with a troll motor.
  • Reply 16 of 16
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Truffol View Post



    Dan Hesse...always thought he was the most innovative CEOs amongst the four big carriers. Great TV persona too haha

    I think you're seeing the beginning of the great commoditization of wireless.    Hess/Sprint is an early victim.

    Compatibility with the thing in my hand, Ubiquity of high speed bandwidth, price, service, and  are the most important aspects.  Sprint failed on all of these things (WiMax?  for Real?). 

     

    NB   I LOVED SPRINT back in the late 90's.  CDMA was the sh*t, vs TDMA. and Sprint sold dual band phones (Sanyo w/ qualcomm radios) that covered both.

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