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Sprint, T-Mobile Reportedly Close to Sealing Merger Deal

Posted byBy Leo | Published on: CommentsComments (0)

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The combination of T-Mobile and Sprint apparently is closer to becoming a reality.

Bloomberg and several other news outlets are reporting that Sprint and T-Mobile — and their primary owners SoftBank and Deutsche Telekom — are close to arriving at the specific terms. DT was holding out for $40 a share, while SoftBank was offering a price in the upper 30s, so the two have settled on a price near $39 a share, Bloomberg sources said, though they didn’t reveal a specific number.

At that valuation, T-Mobile would be worth $31.3 billion, and once you factored in its debt and cash, the cost of buying T-Mobile would rise to about $40.8 billion, Bloomberg pointed out. The deal could be announced as soon as July.

Of course, agreeing to the deal is the easy part. When — and if — these companies finalize their terms, they’ll then have to convince shareholders as well as a U.S. regulatory system that has become increasingly hostile to these kinds of mega-mergers among the nationwide mobile carriers.

Meanwhile, SoftBank CEO and new Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has been discussing the merger with any audience he can find. He won’t mention T-Mobile by name, but he’s saying plenty – like promising to rejuvenate home broadband as well as mobile competition in the U.S. – to justify the deal.

source: gigaom.com

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