With Softbank announcing that they will be purchasing a majority stake in Sprint, naturally many assumed that Sprint’s ambition to outbid T-Mobile on the MetroPCS deal would go away. As it turns out that isn’t the case and according to the Wall Street Journal, both Softbank and Sprint’s CEOs have come forward with statements saying that the possibility of bidding for MetroPCS could still be in the cards. Apparently this is thanks to the nature of the deal between Softbank and Sprint, in which Softbank will be giving Sprint some cash to work with if the opportunity to bid for MetroPCS is available.
According to Dan Hesse, Sprint’s CEO, “Think of it almost as an insurance policy. It’s some money in the bank until the deal closes that, for some reason, if we wanted to do something we could.” Hesse also spoke about assumptions that Sprint and T-Mobile could merge in the future to take on AT&T and Verizon – “We’ve got a transaction that’s pending with Softbank, and then when we get together we’ll take a look at the landscape and make our decisions then. If it’s accretive and makes sense for our shareholders, I would do what it takes.” In any case it looks like major changes will be taking place amongst the major US carriers and it will be interesting to see how this will impact and benefit consumers in the future.