T-Mobile, in the middle of a campaign to upend the wireless industry, is aiming to give itself more financial resources for the battle.
The Bellevue-based wireless today announced an offering of more than 66 million shares of stock, saying in a news release that it will use the proceeds “for general corporate purposes, including capital investments, enhancing its financial flexibility and opportunistically acquiring additional spectrum in private party transactions and/or government auctions.”
T-Mobile’s shares fell on the news, declining more than 3 percent in after-hours trading. Even at the lower stock price of $26.15, the stock sale could raise a gross total more than $1.7 billion for the company. T-Mobile had about $2.37 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand as of Sept. 30.
The company, the fourth-largest US wireless carrier, has taken a series of steps to make its wireless plans more attractive to customers, including international data roaming at no extra charge, free data up to 200/MB a month for the iPad Air and other tablets, and separating device and wireless charges, so that customers can pay off the price of the phone over time.
T-Mobile last week added a net total of more than 1 million customers for the second quarter in a row, including 672,000 for its T-Mobile and MetroPCs brands.
