“MetroPCS Communications Inc. has emerged as the frontrunner to buy assets from AT&T Inc. and T- Mobile USA Inc. as those companies seek to win government approval for their $39 billion merger, according to people familiar with the matter,” Serena Saitto, Sara Forden, Olga Kharif and Jeffrey McCracken report for Bloomberg.
“Though the size of the deal isn’t yet definite, it would likely include subscribers and wireless spectrum, said the people, who couldn’t be identified because the talks aren’t yet public,” the quartet reports. “The deal’s value is likely to be less than $4 billion, said one person.”
“AT&T approached smaller rivals including Dallas-based MetroPCS, Leap Wireless International Inc. (LEAP) and Leap Wireless Corp. (DISH), people familiar with the matter said last month. Though Leap is still in talks with AT&T, MetroPCS, with more than $2 billion in cash and short-term investments, has a stronger balance sheet, the people said,” the quartet reports. “As part of the deal, Deutsche Telekom is prepared to help MetroPCS with financing, said one of the people.”
The quartet reports, “AT&T is seeking ways to salvage its agreement to buy T- Mobile USA from Bonn-based Deutsche Telekom AG (DTE) after the U.S. Justice Department sued on Aug. 31 to stop the deal. The talks with MetroPCS may not lead to a deal, and the Justice Department may also deem the remedies insufficient, the people said.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Attribution: BGR. Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
Government screwed up the cellular market by limiting competition by making it illegal to have more than 3 spectrum owners in any metropolitan area, meaning there will always be 3 big cell companies…. and now, when the fourth cell company can’t make it on its own, they block the merger.
Socialist scum.
The government screwed things up worse by allowing the proliferation of wireless standards.
yup… look at Europe… they still have competition… WITH THE SAME STANDARD…
well, just deal with what we got.
Exactly.
Agreed. The government shouldn’t be the one to decide which standard is used, but they should force the companies to work together to decide which one they all want to use. Luckily they’re all moving to LTE, and it’ll just be a matter of frequency support from there.
Even worse are what they allowed cable companies to do by giving them geographic monopolies. It makes me angry when people use that industry as a an example of the free-market failing. It was never a free market!
So, AT&T can sell me as a customer to ghetto-friendly MetroPCS?