Sprint drops bid to buy T
Credit: Reuters/Rick Wilking
A T-Mobile store sign is seen in Broomfield, Colorado February 25, 2014.
Sprint will name a new chief executive on Wednesday to replace Dan Hesse, the person said. Hesse has been CEO of Sprint since 2007. The new chief executive will be an outsider to the company, the person said.
The person asked not to be named because the matter has not been disclosed publicly.
The announcements would signal the end of a prolonged push by Sprint's parent company, SoftBank Corp (9984.T), to acquire rival T-Mobile, despite warnings from regulators that they wish to maintain four major players in the wireless market.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Tuesday that Sprint had abandoned its bid.
Both parties have not ruled out consolidation in the future but came to the conclusion that a deal is unlikely to be approved at this time, the source said.
The Wall Street Journal reported that disagreements over financing and a 'drop dead' date for the merger, a date when both companies can walk away if the merger has not been completed, contributed to the decision to end talks.
Sprint had been working on a deal with Deutsche Telekom AG (DTEGn.DE), T-Mobile's majority owner. French telecom firm Iliad (ILD.PA) is also in talks with investors to improve its own competing bid for the carrier, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
The announcement marks the second blockbuster deal to be abandoned on Tuesday after Rupert Murdoch pulled the plug on Twenty-First Century Fox's (FOXA.O) bid for Time Warner (TWX.N) earlier in the day.
Sprint shares were down 11 percent and T-Mobile shares were down 7.5 percent in after-hours trading.
Representatives for Sprint and SoftBank declined a request for comment. T-Mobile didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, Marina Lopes and Liana B. Baker; additional reporting by Edmund Klamann in Tokyo; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)
Post a Comment for "Sprint drops bid to buy T"