Sprint prepping cash for T-Mobile buy, CEO John Legere frontrunner to lead company
Sprint is reportedly making behind the scenes moves toward the purchase of T-Mobile, with current "uncarrier" CEO John Legere said to be a top candidate to run the new company if and when a deal is reached.
According to people familiar with the matter, Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer and Treasurer Greg Block recently met with banks to secure the capital and financing plans needed for the T-Mobile buyout, reports Bloomberg.
Masayoshi Son's SoftBank, which owns an 80 percent stake in Sprint, is said to be preparing an official bid for June or July, though the figures attached to the supposed deal are not known. Deutsche Telekom, which owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, is reportedly interested in a mostly-cash deal, sources said.
While the arrangement is far from finalized, the two companies are already thinking about who will take the reigns as CEO if and when the buyout happens. People with knowledge of the companies' ongoing talks said outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere is one of the top choices. Legere is perhaps the most well-known chief executive of the four major U.S. carriers thanks to a strong social media presence. .
News that Sprint was first mulling a T-Mobile bid came in December. At the time, speculation put the deal at up to $20 billion, depending on how much stake Sprint was in for. That's more than $1.5 billion less than what Son paid for SoftBank's controlling interest of Sprint in July 2013, but T-Mobile has some $8.7 billion in debt that would be transferred as part of the deal.
If the sale goes through as planned, it would bring together the third- and fourth-largest U.S. telecoms, effectively creating a rival company to Verizon and AT&T. Separately, Sprint and T-Mobile's respective marketshares are dwarfed in comparison to either of the nation's top-two providers. A merger would make the new company a true contender in the battle for subscribers.
What remains to be seen, however, is how the Federal Communications Commission will react to Sprint's bid. In 2011, the body shot down AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile, which would have given it marketshare rivaling that of Verizon.
According to sources, Son believes AT&T was not adequately prepared to handle the FCC's questioning. To that end, by the time the deal comes up for regulation, Sprint will have a detailed prospectus describing how a T-Mobile buyout would be in the public's interest.
According to people familiar with the matter, Sprint CFO Joe Euteneuer and Treasurer Greg Block recently met with banks to secure the capital and financing plans needed for the T-Mobile buyout, reports Bloomberg.
Masayoshi Son's SoftBank, which owns an 80 percent stake in Sprint, is said to be preparing an official bid for June or July, though the figures attached to the supposed deal are not known. Deutsche Telekom, which owns 67 percent of T-Mobile, is reportedly interested in a mostly-cash deal, sources said.
While the arrangement is far from finalized, the two companies are already thinking about who will take the reigns as CEO if and when the buyout happens. People with knowledge of the companies' ongoing talks said outspoken T-Mobile CEO John Legere is one of the top choices. Legere is perhaps the most well-known chief executive of the four major U.S. carriers thanks to a strong social media presence. .
News that Sprint was first mulling a T-Mobile bid came in December. At the time, speculation put the deal at up to $20 billion, depending on how much stake Sprint was in for. That's more than $1.5 billion less than what Son paid for SoftBank's controlling interest of Sprint in July 2013, but T-Mobile has some $8.7 billion in debt that would be transferred as part of the deal.
If the sale goes through as planned, it would bring together the third- and fourth-largest U.S. telecoms, effectively creating a rival company to Verizon and AT&T. Separately, Sprint and T-Mobile's respective marketshares are dwarfed in comparison to either of the nation's top-two providers. A merger would make the new company a true contender in the battle for subscribers.
What remains to be seen, however, is how the Federal Communications Commission will react to Sprint's bid. In 2011, the body shot down AT&T's proposed merger with T-Mobile, which would have given it marketshare rivaling that of Verizon.
According to sources, Son believes AT&T was not adequately prepared to handle the FCC's questioning. To that end, by the time the deal comes up for regulation, Sprint will have a detailed prospectus describing how a T-Mobile buyout would be in the public's interest.
Comments
“Sprint T-Mobile” anagrams into “Problems in tit”.
Guess they’ll have to come up with another company name.
Ah, Snottier Blimp!
AT&T and Cingular had 2 different networks. That turned out pretty well.
AT&T and Cingular had 2 different networks. That turned out pretty well.
Thats because they were both GSM networks so no, they were the same. T-Mobile is GSM and Sprint is CDMA.
Wrong. AT&T was TDMA.
T-Mobile is also the golden reason they Declined the ATT acquisition. All the FCC and DoJ need to do when they tell Sprint no, is point out how right they were and how well T-Mobile is doing..
Why risk dragging 2 down (Sprint and T-Mobile) with merger, when they could just let Sprint live or die and T-Mobile continue to thrive and grow separately? T-Mobile already has new 700Mhz block sale finalized.. and more spectrum to come.. They are not hurting right now and have room to grow..
ONLY way would be if they let John stay on from T-Mobile as CEO and practically scrapped the Sprint network.. It's got way to many issues, legacy problems, etc. T-Mobile would do what they did for MetroPCS, which was CDMA... As customers got new phones, they got ones that worked on the GSM/LTE network of T-Mobile.. migrating them over.. One issue I see is it would take years.. 2-3 year upgrade cycle on Sprint..
Holy Telephony, Sprintman!
Edit because I screwed up.
Wrong. AT&T was TDMA.
GSM is very similar to TDMA. The two are are much more closely linked than trying to get GSM and CDMA working together on the same network. AT&T wouldn't have bought them if they had wholly different standards. AT&T buying Cingular makes far more sense because the two technologies are very similar, having GSM and CDMA on the same network doesn't. Sprint seems to be wanting to buy someone that actually is a threat and one that they can afford.
Sprint sucks. T-Mobile is way better than Sprint. And now T-Mobile will sink down to Sprints level. I guess The actual two giants will rule now. AT&T and Verizon. In my opinion they are the only two real networks.
GSM is very similar to TDMA. The two are are much more closely linked than trying to get GSM and CDMA working together on the same network. AT&T wouldn't have bought them if they had wholly different standards. AT&T buying Cingular makes far more sense because the two technologies are very similar, having GSM and CDMA on the same network doesn't. Sprint seems to be wanting to buy someone that actually is a threat and one that they can afford.
Cingular migrated from AMPS (analog cellular) to TDMA to GSM (AMPS and TDMA co-existed for some time in many areas). I'm not sure but I think the old AT&T (pre-merger) followed a similar, if not same path. It made it a good fit (technologically) for both companies to merge, since they were already going down the same migration path.
Quick! To the Sprintphone... 'Do-Do-Dooo' "We're sorry. The number you have reached is unavailable. Please try your call again later. Good-bye."
I was considering trying out T-Mobile with the next iPhone but I don't have any interest to use Sprin-T (pronounced Sprinty) so I'll try Verizon again.
That seems strange. I mean, the deal hasn't been announced or approved. Further, you are not stuck on a contract with T-Mobile. So, try it out now, if things go bad, you leave.
Cingular migrated from AMPS (analog cellular) to TDMA to GSM (AMPS and TDMA co-existed for some time in many areas). I'm not sure but I think the old AT&T (pre-merger) followed a similar, if not same path. It made it a good fit (technologically) for both companies to merge, since they were already going down the same migration path.
Correct. AT&T Wireless was already building out GSM side-by-side with TDMA when the merger with Cingular was announced. At the time, I believe Cingular was providing GSM services with an agreement with T-Mobile while its pre-GSM network was also TDMA.
As someone said earlier, the AT&T Wireless/Cingular merger made sense due to compatible technologies, and because post-merger each of the two companies would no longer incur separate costs investing in its own network equipment, cell site leases, etc; these efforts would be combined into a single network, saving a ton of money.
Sprint's CDMA network is aging rapidly and needs to be updated. T-Mobile is investing in upgrading its GSM network to LTE, so it makes sense for Sprint to merge with them to save the cost they would incur by building out a separate LTE network for the same reason it made sense for the AWS/Cingular merger. Sprint and T-Mobile may not have compatible networks today, but ultimately they will as Sprint will inevitably be forced to follow AT&T and T-Mobile to LTE.
1) According to the rumour the official bid will happen in June or July which is 2-4 months before Apple releases the next iPhone.What's strange about that?
2) A contract is never a barrier because you can always pay the ETF.
I thought T-mobile improved their business recently?
Please keep Sprint away from my T-mobile :-(
What color does Magenta and yellow make? Some weird orange? I don't want ORANGE!!!
Sounds logical.
:err: