In the US, there are currently four major carriers in play at the moment. They are AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. In the past we have seen how AT&T attempted to buy out T-Mobile but was met with huge resistance, thus leading to the sale being cancelled. Now according to a report by Bloomberg, it seems that Sprint is getting ready to acquire T-Mobile, with the sale expected to take place in the middle of the year.
According to their report, Sprint has met up with several banks in the past few months regarding the financial details about the deal and ensuring that the pieces are in place before they make their bid. This is actually not the first time we’ve heard about Sprint trying to acquire T-Mobile, but now we have a date to look forward to.
Sprint was recently taken over by Japanese carrier, Softbank, not too long ago. Softbank’s CEO, Masayoshi Son, has also reportedly been in talks with the FCC, presumably to reassure them that by acquiring T-Mobile, they will not end up being a monopoly. That is one of the reasons why AT&T and T-Mobile’s merger failed, because regulators were worried that with AT&T’s size, gobbling up one of its smaller competitors would reduce the amount of competitors in the market.
Bloomberg also reports that Son is hoping to avoid a nasty breakup fee should the deal fall through. This breakup fee was paid by AT&T to T-Mobile when their deal fell through which saw up to $6 billion in cash, assets, and services paid out to the carrier. In any case this is a pretty big move and we’ll definitely be keeping tabs on it, but what do you guys think? Would you like to see Sprint takeover T-Mobile?