Sprint’s merger with T-Mobile is moving closer to reality.
Sources tell Bloomberg that Sprint is set to offer 50 percent stock and 50 percent cash for Bellevue-based T-Mobile US as soon as next month in a major deal that would combine the nation’s third and fourth-largest wireless carriers.
Bloomberg notes that T-Mobile US parent company Deutsche Telekom AG would retain 15 percent stake in the combined company. The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal could be worth as much as $50 billion, and that Sprint would pay around $40 per share for T-Mobile.
The merger has been rumored for some time now. Just last week at the Re/code Code Conference, Sprint Chairman Masayoshi Son spoke highly of T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who is rumored to become Sprint’s new CEO if the deal went down.
Son has previously said that if the two companies came together, he’d launch a massive price war against rivals Verizon and AT&T.
Still, any potential merger faces heavy opposition from federal regulators. The federal government blocked T-Mobile’s last merger attempt with AT&T, saying that further consolidation among wireless carriers would hurt competition. Instead, under Legere’s leadership, T-Mobile has gone on to attract a record number of customers with its “Uncarrier” strategy while bashing competitors like AT&T and Verizon.
