Sprint Mulling Bid to Snipe MetroPCS from T-Mobile USA
Earlier today, it looked like a marriage of T-Mobile and MetroPCS was all but a formality, but we suppose that’s why they have the ceremony, as a late-breaking report indicates that Sprint may be planning to make a bid of its own for MetroPCS.
According to Reuters, Sprint’s big cheeses will meet on Friday at noon to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on another bid--indeed, another, because Sprint supposedly withdrew an $8 billion offer for MetroPCS back in February. Perhaps Sprint is regretting that decision now.
The report indicates that Sprint could make an offer of between $12.50 and $15 per share (in part by paying with its own stock), while the T-Mobile deal is valued closer to $11.28 per share.
Image credit: ABC News
Analysts point out that it might make more sense for Sprint to win the bid; MetroPCS and Sprint both use CDMA networks, so merging them could conceivably easy, while T-Mobile has an incompatible network technology and would shut down MetroPCS over the course of two years.
There’s one other possibility, however remote--some speculate that Sprint could snap up both T-Mobile and MetroPCS after the former acquires the latter. We imagine, however, that anti-trust concerns could cause a hiccup in that idea.
According to Reuters, Sprint’s big cheeses will meet on Friday at noon to decide whether or not to pull the trigger on another bid--indeed, another, because Sprint supposedly withdrew an $8 billion offer for MetroPCS back in February. Perhaps Sprint is regretting that decision now.
The report indicates that Sprint could make an offer of between $12.50 and $15 per share (in part by paying with its own stock), while the T-Mobile deal is valued closer to $11.28 per share.
Image credit: ABC News
Analysts point out that it might make more sense for Sprint to win the bid; MetroPCS and Sprint both use CDMA networks, so merging them could conceivably easy, while T-Mobile has an incompatible network technology and would shut down MetroPCS over the course of two years.
There’s one other possibility, however remote--some speculate that Sprint could snap up both T-Mobile and MetroPCS after the former acquires the latter. We imagine, however, that anti-trust concerns could cause a hiccup in that idea.
