T-Mobile has found its own HQ2 — no nationwide search required.
The wireless company’s deal to merge with Sprint, announced Sunday morning, will give T-Mobile two headquarters, following the lead of Amazon, Accolade and other companies in designating multiple locations as “headquarters,” contradicting the traditional meaning of the term.
The combined company, to be called T-Mobile, “will be headquartered in Bellevue, Wash.,” the longtime home of T-Mobile, “with a second headquarters in Overland Park, Kan.,” which is Sprint’s hometown, just outside of Kansas City, Mo. That’s the language used in the official news release this morning.
What does that mean, in effect? We’ve asked T-Mobile to clarify where John Legere will be based as the CEO of the combined company, which is ultimately the best proxy for determining the center of power. In the meantime, Legere called the dual headquarters approach a “no-brainer” on a conference call with reporters and analysts this morning.
Two great companies are coming together, and they have two fantastic headquarters locations, two amazing communities for people to work, two great labor forces and two great places to attract more talent. So it’s just a complete no-brainer that this company will be anchored around two major headquarters locations. The energy and the talent and the people there. And again, as we’ve gotten to know the two companies, certainly Seattle is known as a great place to live and work, you know, the headquarters of Sprint is a fantastic place that we see to attract talent, a place to live and so core to this company is going to be both locations anchored with the teams that are there. So I couldn’t be more emphatic about that.
The Seattle region is a longtime home to pioneering wireless companies, dating back to the early days of McCaw Cellular and other early leaders in the industry.
More than 200,000 people will work for the combined company initially, and defying the traditional logic of such mergers, Legere insisted on the call that the new T-Mobile will add thousands of jobs to their combined workforce, spending $40 billion to integrate their operation. All of this depends on regulatory and shareholder approval. The companies say the deal should close no later than the first half of next year.
