Sprint and T-Mobile have talked about a merger before, but strong anti-trust regulations have deterred the two companies from joining. But in recent days, the cellular giants have settled on the terms of a $32 billion deal that is likely to be announced this summer, people briefed on the matter said on Wednesday. The terms of the deal Sprint would acquire T-Mobile for about $40 a share in cash and stock, a 17 percent premium to Wednesday’s price.
There is no word about when the two companies could make their deal official, but as we said it would be summer when we heard about this deal. This deal could take a year or more for the government to approve the deal, and with a $1 billion breakup fee this could be a good deal either way. SoftBank, the parent company of Sprint, has argued that it needs T-Mobile to build Sprint into a truly competitive wireless carrier, although its arguments have been greeted with skepticism by the FTC so far.
The original WSJ report said that the merger would be worth $50 billion, but it has since changed its report and is now saying it will be worth $32 billion. We’ll keep asking around, but both companies declined to comment on this rumor. T-Mobile has been making waves in the market with upgrades anytime, no contracts, and phones that aren’t subsidized. Sprint however has stuck to the unlimited plans to lure customers over, but that’s not gone as well as they have hoped. Sprint continues to lose subscribers while T-Mobile adds them.
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